Another Brick in the Wall: A Faculty Fanfiction
by Lea of Mirkwood
Summary: Casey Conner meets an unusual new female student and over the school year they share a poignant friendship more powerful than love, hate, popularity and aliens as they help each other through life, jealousy, cheating and their own love. COMPLETE.
1. Golden Years

Title: Another Brick in the Wall  
  
Author: Lea of Mirkwood  
  
Rating: R, for language.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.  
  
Summary: Casey makes an unlikely friend, his complete opposite.  
  
  
  
HEY, FF.NET! GIVEI THE FACULTY/I IT'S OWN CATEGORY!!!! WE WANT A CATEGORY! 


	2. Freespirited, not insane, FREE SPIRITED

Title: Another Brick in the Wall  
  
Chapter: The Newest Victim of Herrington High  
  
Author: Lea of Mirkwood  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.  
  
  
  
September 1, 1998, Herrington High, Ohio.  
  
Herrington High was a normal high school. There was the popular bunch, which, predictably, consisted of the football team and their cheerleaders. There was the goths, the druggies, the dropouts, the geeks/scapegoats, and the A-students. The popular ones loved school, because of their superiority. Everyone else hated it.  
  
The student parking lot was filled with the usual piece of crap cars. As Kit pulled up in the parking lot, Elton John's "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting," blaring from her speakers, she glanced at the rusting busses, painted with "GO HORNETS!!!" on the side on the school's red and gold. Kit parked her fading blue convertible in the back of the parking lot, next to the football field. She turned off the motor and sat there for a moment, staring at the football team. She followed their progress as they moved through the parking lot and past the bus loop, knocking the line of students getting off the bus sideways. She sighed and looked down at her backpack.  
  
"Oh well."  
  
She opened the driver's side door and got out, ruefully grinning at the sound of screeching tires. A black car with red stripes sped in and pulled around diagonally and parked, taking up three parking spaces. Kit ran her fingers through her chocolate colored hair and slung her bag over her shoulder. She watched as an older, black-haired guy got out of the badly parked car and opened his trunk. She walked past, smirking at him.  
  
"Wow. You've turned shitty parking into an art form," she said derisively. He smiled at her, in a rude sort of way. A few other boys gravitated towards the car, and a furtive exchange of money for porn was made. Kit snorted.  
  
"Jesus, it's like moths to a flame!" she called back. "Bzzzt! Guys to porn!"  
  
She ignored whatever reaction they displayed and walked on towards the school. Kit pulled her rectangular framed glassed out of her pocket and put them on, kicking a beer can along before her carelessly. She was an average girl, seventeen. Brown-haired, green-eyed and tall, she looked innocent enough, with her always grinning eyes, and her wide smile, but what people usually didn't see was the chip on her shoulder, the chip that carried a Uzi. Kit was very odd. She preferred "free-spirited." Katherine O'Connell walked into Herrington High.  
  
--- --- ---  
  
Kit looked down at her schedule.  
  
"2-204, 2-204, 2-204.....where the fuck is 2-204?"  
  
"Hi, are you new here? Welcome to Herrington High!"  
  
Kit counted to three, considering the merits of finding class versus turning around and asking whoever it was if they had a cat in their pants. She decided class was more important and turned around.  
  
"I truly hope you enjoy it here. I'm Delilah Profitt. Need help finding your class?" asked the trendy girl in front of her, with a practiced expression of welcoming firmly pasted on her Estee Lauder face.  
  
"Kit O'Connell. Mr. Tate, 2-204?" Kit said, the chip making its way to the edge of her shoulder and aiming it's Uzi at Delilah. Delilah cocked her head and smiled.  
  
"That's my first class too. Come on, I'll show you the way."  
  
Kit took a deep breath and smiled. "Sure."  
  
She found a seat in the back of the class, next to a girl in black. She pulled out her sketchbook and a pencil and watched as the elderly Mr. Tate walked in. Just as the bell was ringing, a last student hurried through the door and walked to the last seat, in front of the goth girl, looking down at his feet self-consciously. The boy looked down at his lap and pressed a wad of toilet paper to his nose. It came away bloody.  
  
"Very smooth, Casey," drawled the goth girl.  
  
"Morning to you too, Stokely," said Casey in a muffled voice, squeezing his blue eyes shut. 'Very pretty blue eyes,' mused Kit, fumbling in her messenger bag for a pack of tissues. She pulled it out and reached across the aisle, tapping Casey on the shoulder with the corner of it. He took it shyly and mouthed, "Thank you." He turned back and hunched over his books, pulling out another tissue and pressing it to his nose. She heard him use a very naughty word that she never would have thought he'd say, but seeing as this looked like a regular event, she figured it was expected. She studied his face with a practiced eye and slowly opened her sketchbook. Her pencil flew over the page as she sketched Casey, then Stokely, then Delilah and wrote their names underneath their pictures. Kit was horrible with names. Then she went back and drew a second sketch of Casey, this time with the wad of tissues to his nose. Suddenly she heard a voice over her shoulder.  
  
"Hey," said Stokely. "That's pretty good."  
  
"Thank you," replied Kit.  
  
"Hey Casey, come over here."  
  
Sniff. "What?"  
  
"Christ, Casey, it's you."  
  
Casey got up and walked to Kit's desk and looked down at the sketchbook. His blue eyes widened.  
  
"That's really good," he said softly.  
  
"Yeah, no shit Casey," muttered Stokely, "It's fucking brilliant."  
  
"Thank you," said Kit as the bell rang. They all turned back to their respective desks and gathered up their things to go to their next class.  
  
--- --- ---  
  
  
  
Well? Okay, those of you who know me know that I don't talk like that normally, it's just for the sake of the fic. Please review. I'm crazy, I know, and yes, I do think those blue eyes are completely GORGEOUS. 


	3. Of flagpoles and mashed potatoes

Title: Another Brick in the Wall  
  
Author: Lea of Mirkwood  
  
Rating: R, for language.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
September 2, 1998  
  
"One! Two! Three! Go!"  
  
Kit walked up the lawn of the school, eyes narrowed in confusion. She hurried in the direction of the voices, wondering if it was a cockfight from the circus or something equally amusing. It wasn't. Half the football team and some of the "burnouts" had found a favorite pastime. They had Casey lifted up like a battering ram, and, even though he was struggling, ran him against the flagpole with his legs open. They laughed and dropped him to the ground like a forgotten toy. Casey moaned in pain and curled up in the fetal position, and tried to sit back up. The rest of the aggressors picked up his schoolbooks and scattered them all over the ground. Kit squared her shoulders and marched towards the group, pushing past the small group of sadists who had come to watch.  
  
"Get the fuck out of my way, you sons of bitches! Leave him the fuck alone!" she yelled angrily, making her way through.  
  
"Jesus Christ, what a bitch," muttered Gabe, and another aggressor laughed.  
  
"Little bastard isn't gonna be fucking anything anytime soon now!"  
  
Kit smirked and walked directly up to him, looking straight into his eyes. She brought her knee up and kneed him in the groin. He groaned and bent over.  
  
"Well neither are you," she snapped. "Serves you right, you asshole."  
  
The crowd dispersed, losing interest. Kit crouched down next to Casey and put a hand on his shoulder, propping him up. "Hey...are you okay?" she asked, concerned. "Casey?"  
  
He propped himself up a little, blinking rapidly and wincing.  
  
"Yeah....I think so."  
  
"Good," said Kit, standing up quickly. Casey dropped back down without her hand on his shoulder and hit the ground with a grunt of pain. Kit started packing up Casey's things again. A group of the cheerleaders walked by, Delilah at the front. Casey followed her with his eyes, staring with a kind of worship. Kit stood back up, dusting her hands off on her hips. She dropped Casey's olive colored messenger bag by his feet, and held out her hand. He took it and she pulled him up. Kit noticed, with some amusement, that he was about two inches shorter than her. She pushed her glasses up on top of her head.  
  
"Kit O'Connell, by the way."  
  
Casey nodded, and put his hand up to his nose. It came away bloody. He looked over at the girl, hoping she hadn't noticed. Too late.  
  
"That...uhh..." she said, quite articulately. She reached out and removed his hand gently. She peered at Casey, making him feel very uncomfortable.  
  
"It doesn't seem too bad!" she said cheerfully, having concluded her study of Casey's face. "No severe damage down south? That I'm not checking."  
  
He swallowed. "Well...thank you," he said uncomfortably. Kit reached over and lightly brushed her thumb against his lower lip. He pulled back.  
  
"No problem. Anytime those jerks try to get on your case, just yell, okay?"  
  
Casey nodded, looking away. He felt so ashamed, having to be saved by the new kid, and to add to that, it was a girl. He turned and walked away.  
  
--- --- ---  
  
Whether by choice, or by chance, Casey and Kit stuck together. Casey, because he'd seen the damage Kit had done to those bullies, and Kit because she believed in strength in numbers. Not many people picked on either of them. It definitely wasn't a friendship. It was more of a mutual distaste for pain and humiliation. Unfortunately, their sixth period gym was the place where the theory of the buddy system failed. This was when pushpins found their way into Kit's gym shoes and wet, twisted towels slapped against Casey's backside, and he found himself locked in lockers or, since he had grown a bit over summer break, the new method was to shove him so hard into the locker he had vent marks imprinted on his face until seventh period. Kit went out to her car to eat lunch, Casey went to the bleachers. Casey was definitely put off by Kit and her energetic personality. Put bluntly, he didn't understand it, and sometimes it embarrassed him. The day they mutually decided that lunch together was a bad idea was the first and, as Casey passionately hoped, last day that they ate together at school. They sat down at Stokely's table.  
  
"Hello, Stokely!" said Kit, putting her tray down.  
  
"Hi Stokes," mumbled Casey, trying to ignore Kit. Stokely acknowleged their presence by nodding slightly, then returning to her book. Casey opened his brown bag lunch and began eating his egg salad sandwich. A few minutes of eating peacefully in silence and then it all went to hell.  
  
"Why Stokely, I see you've finally found someone willing to be seen within a five foot radius of you," came Delilah's smug tone.  
  
"Look where you're standing," muttered Kit around a mouthful of peach cobbler. Casey looked intently at his juice box as if the puzzle on the back told the secret of the universe. (42)  
  
"Fuck off, bitch," replied Stokely with usual enthusiasm, which is, to say, not much.  
  
"So violent. So, Stokely, I read a study that said lesbians are mostly violent when they are provoked. Can you help us? Do you think that theory is true?"  
  
"Theory," echoed Kit. "That's a really big word for you Delilah."  
  
"Oh, sticking up for your little lesbian lover? Are you a violent lesbian too?"  
  
"Quite articulate. I congratulate you, Delilah," said Kit. "And no, I am not a lesbian. I prefer guys."  
  
Delilah smirked. "Well, you won't be getting very far with Casey here," she mocked, reaching over to ruffle Casey's hair, who turned red at her touch. "He doesn't date."  
  
"Did I say I was interested in Casey? No, I thought not. Why would you say he wouldn't date though? He's cute enough," asked Kit offhandedly, reaching over to tilt Casey's face up. "Well, maybe not when he's blushing so bad, but normally there's nothing wrong with him."  
  
"He's gay!" yelled one of the guys on the football team, overhearing the conversation.  
  
"Oh, how convenient," hissed Delilah. "You can scope out men together!" Before Kit, Casey, or Stokely could respond, she turned and started to walk away from their table. Kit stood up suddenly, green eyes flashing, and scooped up a generous amount of mashed potatoes and gravy on the cheap plastic spork. When Casey realized what she was going to do, it was already too late. Kit flung the potatoes at Delilah. It made a rather satisfying splat sound when it hit the back of Delilah's hair. Delilah's eyes opened wide and she put her hand to the back of her head as she turned around. The entire courtyard went silent.  
  
"Holy shit, Del!" laughed Stan. Casey stood up and stared at Kit, then Delilah, then back to Kit. Jason, one of the more hot-headed members of the football team, stood up and threw his roll at the three outcasts. Casey ducked, and pulled out his camera, taking a quick picture of Delilah with mashed potatoes in her hair. Kit started laughing and picked up the half- eaten peach cobbler. She threw it back at the jock table.  
  
"My hair!" cried Delilah in anguish, covering her head. Casey dove under the table, putting his camera away, out of range of flying mashed potatoes, creamed corn and peach cobbler. It was war. Food flew all around the courtyard, hitting both students and poor, unsuspecting lunch monitors.  
  
Ten minutes later, Casey found himself by the water fountain, holding Kit's books.  
  
"Here, hold the water on," she said. He shoved the button in with his finger, rather irritated. Kit flipped her head over the water stream and combed her fingers through her hair, rinsing out the creamed corn. Casey looked away, trying to pretend he didn't know her. Kit started laughing.  
  
"That was priceless! Did you see their faces? And the way her face got all squinchy and peevish when she felt the potatoes in her hair?! It was perfect!"  
  
She flipped her hair back up over her head, spraying Casey with the water. She held it up above her head and clipped it with a butterfly clip. Casey stared at the back of her neck, where her wet hair, looking almost black, curled into little ringlets at the nape of her neck, where wet brown hair turned into pale skin. He wondered if she had been dropped on her head as a child.  
  
He avoided her for a week. 


	4. Of dissing and human beings

Title: Another Brick in the Wall  
  
Author: Lea of Mirkwood  
  
Rating: R, for reality.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.  
  
I DON'T SEE A CATEGORY YET!!!!  
  
  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Thursday, September 10, 1998  
  
"Hey, uh, Kit. Is that your name? Kit?"  
  
Kit slowly turned around to face the captain of the football team. Stan smiled a little.  
  
"That was cool what you did the other day. I've never seen Del so pissed."  
  
Kit nodded. "Uh, thanks, I guess."  
  
"Yo Stan!" called Gabe from down the hallway, and tossed a football at Stan, who caught it easily. He jogged up and slapped Stan on the shoulder.  
  
"Hey, Gabe, this is Kit."  
  
"Yo, Kit."  
  
Casey exited the bathroom a few feet away, once again holding the tissue to his bloody nose that had almost become a permanent fixture. He saw Kit talking with Stan and Gabe, and the look of betrayal he futilely tried to hide was heartrending. Kit turned abruptly back to the two football players. She put her hand on Stan's shoulder.  
  
"Stan , you're an okay kind of guy," and then she removed her hand and turned to Gabe. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go speak to an actual human being, not some violent, prejudiced, pathetic excuse for one."  
  
She walked around them and over to Casey, putting her arm around his shoulders and leading him off, away from the laughing Stan and the open- mouthed Gabe. Casey couldn't help but smile. Though rare, Kit did have her cool moments.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sorry so short! I just had to redeem Kit in Casey's eyes, and show that she's not really just a bitch.  
  
  
  
Also, Kit and Casey are just friends. Awkward friends, but friends. Kit has no romantic intentions towards Casey of any kind. She just wants people to stop picking on him. And as for the hugs, and the hand, and the shoulder thing, Kit is just a very physical person. 


	5. Of science classes and cowgirls

Title: Another Brick in the Wall  
  
Author: Lea of Mirkwood  
  
Rating: R, for language.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.  
  
**************************************************************************** **********  
  
Monday, September 14, 1998  
  
Delilah sat down at her seat, making sure her skirt was neat under her, her hair hadn't rebelliously switched sides over her even part and her shirt hadn't twisted at all. She hated anatomy and physiology class. Instead of taking physics or something that involved less lab tables, here she was, sitting at a disgusting lab table where cow brains had been sitting. It was nauseating. She decided to concentrate on something else. Like that new girl at the back of the room. Delilah took pleasure in the sight of her sitting alone, and looking very uncomfortable. Delilah tapped one fingernail against her front teeth, a nervous habit. She had the feeling that there was something she was forgetting about Katherine. Boyfriend? No. Best girl friend? No. What was it? Delilah's gaze fell on the copy of the school paper, and the credit line for the picture on the front. That was it. That school photographer, Casey. The kind of person you went to school with for years and years but never really remembered or noticed. That's right, mused Delilah. It had been Casey that she'd been so rudely and misguidedly defending when she'd thrown that spoonful of mashed potatoes. Casey and that freaky goth girl Stokely. It was a pity for Katherine -- Kit, remembered Delilah with a mental sneer at the nickname – that she hadn't chosen to be nicer to the head cheerleader. Somehow, Delilah vowed silently, she would get back at that little upstart cowgirl.  
  
--- --- ---  
  
Casey knew that Kit was from Wyoming, and she had grown up on a horse ranch, but somehow the thought of Kit, cowgirl extrordinaire, didn't fit. The mystery was solved one day when he sneaked a glance at the inside cover of Kit's sketchbook. A few photographs were taped there. One of which had Kit and a horse, with Kit hanging, her legs locked around the base of the horse's neck and her arms around the top of it's neck. She was laughing. The other was Kit and a buy about her age riding double on a black horse. Then Kit had snatched the sketchbook away and demanded to know what he had looked at.  
  
--- --- ---  
  
Stokely sat down at her computer and logged on to the internet, smiling for the first time in days. She quickly navigated her way to the website that monitored all high school football games in the district. The first game of the season. She found the link to the webcam and clicked on it, fiddling nervously with her sun and moon necklace. The little video box filled up the screen. She curled her feet around the legs of her chair and watched the football game happily. It was the one thing she could do without being questioned, and no one at school had to know. Her contentment was complete. Just her, her computer and the football team. The time flew by, with Stokely not thinking of anything but the game. She watched as number ___ ran down the field, the front of his helmet trained at the ball flying through the air towards him. He leaped up and caught it. The opposing team rushed towards him. Stokely held her breath. The player paused for less than a second and took off running the last few yards towards the end zone. Touchdown! mouthed Stokely silently in her room, mentally cheering. The hero of the football team stood up and whipped off his helmet. His teammates rushed him and lifted him up in the air, chanting, "Stan! Stan! Stan! Stan!" He grinned, looking up at the sky and raising his arms in triumph. Stokely laughed, her music muffling the sound of her joy. He won, she thought with a smile, and placed a finger against the tiny hand on the screen, high-fiving him along with his teammates. She watched his smiling face. She didn't even notice the tear that had rolled down her cheek and hit the keyboard. The webcam shut off, and Stokely shut down her computer, still smiling. She fell back on her bed and closed her eyes, still smiling. One last thought flickered through her mind.  
  
"I wonder if it's possible to fall in love with someone you've never spoken to."  
  
--- --- --- 


	6. Of senior trips, twinkies and nasty note...

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Rating: R, for language.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.

**************************************************************************************

Monday, October 5, 1998

"It's time to start planning for our senior trip," said Delilah imperiously. "I'm thinking Hawaii."

Kit lazily raised her hand, one of the only seniors actually paying attention.

"Katherine?" said Delilah reluctantly.

"Wouldn't that be just a _little_ bit expensive?"

Delilah sighed. "I'm sorry, Katherine-"

"Kit."

"...Kit...but going to the cowboy ranch is out of the question."

Delilah's attempt at a slashing comment fell rather flat, as no one was really listening. Kit shrugged and started spitefully humming "Home on the Range." Delilah gritted her teeth. Casey, about twenty seats away from all human contact, raised his hand.

"We could try Detroit..." he trailed off when the football team started laughing. "or...not..." he said, sinking lower in his seat.

"Actually, that's not a bad idea. I'll take it up with Mr. Tate."

Kit turned around in her chair to look at Casey and give him the thumbs-up. Casey smiled back rather uneasily, and lowered his eyes, pleased that Delilah had liked his suggestion. Kit turned back, racking her brain for a song to hum about Detroit, but failing. She settled for humming a Beatles song. (Here Comes the Sun, my favorite.) The person next to Kit turned and glared at her. Casey watched Kit shrug and pull something out of her bag, most likely her sketchbook so she could (again) draw Delilah and add the devil horns and claim once more that she was only showing what the class president _really_ looked like.

--- --- ---

Kit finished off the doodle of Delilah with devil horns and satanic worshipers in dark robes bowing to her with little speech bubbles saying, "Teach me to be so evil, my wicked mistress." It really wasn't fair. She had been going to Greengrass High for three years. She'd been a Greengrass Wildcat. She'd grown up there. All her memories would be of Greengrass High and Katie, and Nell, and Alec, and Hayden and Rob. Oh, Rob. For the last year, her junior year, it had been KitandRob. RobandKit. They were inseparable. But now, all of that would be erased. Forever, her diploma would say Herrington High, Ohio. No one would know how much she'd loved going to that wonderful high school in town, with it's murals of horses on the wall, and the bronze mountain lion outside in the courtyard, which was their pride and joy. She had gone there and loved it there and really been happy. All her memories would be of Greengrass High. But for the rest of her life there would be notices asking her to come to Herrington High reunions to see her good old pals from Ohio. Nothing would come from Greengrass High. She would forever see the red and gold notices in the mail. Nothing with the green and yellow. Nothing that said "Support the new Wildcats of Greengrass High!" but notices saying "Feel the Sting! Support the new Hornets!" It was like her entire life would be wiped out. She and her friends had put off their P.E. credit until senior year, planning to be the seniors that ruled over the freshman Phys. Ed. class. Now she was stuck in a school with no friends and a P.E. class of midgets. At least Rob still wrote. Kit was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn't even notice that the assembly was over. She felt a hand on her shoulder and jumped, looking up. It was Casey, standing behind her. She tipped her head back, looking at him upside down.

"Casey."

"The assembly is over. It's time for your Anatomy Phys, and my Latin class."

"That sounds like a cola. You know, I used to think physics was how they got the bubbles in cola? Say it out loud, Casey. See? See?"

"Physics. Fizz-ics. Oh."

Kit laughed and reached up and tweaked Casey's cheek. "You're cute. Let's go to class."

Kit shut her sketchbook and got up. 

"What were you drawing?" asked Casey as they headed for the exit. Kit hesitated, knowing how he hated when she made fun of Delilah. Kit opened to another sketch, this one of Casey himself looking down at the ground, watching a butterfly. Casey nodded.

"Oh."

Kit shrugged. "I hadn't done the butterfly yet."

Casey nodded. "Okay. See you later?" he said, stopping outside the door to his Latin class. Kit nodded. Casey went into class and sat down near the door. He idly watched Kit as she went down the hall to her next class. The bell rang. Mrs. Danann walked to the front of the room. Casey got out a pencil and paper and looked up at the front of the room. Mrs. Danann turned on the projector and put a transparency of Latin verbs on. Casey started copying them down without really thinking about them.

"Draco, draconem..." he muttered under his breath. "Patria..." (those are the only Latin words I know. The others I have to look up.) 

"Amor omnia vincit," Casey heard one of the girls in his class whisper, then look up at one of the members of the football team. Casey, distracted by this, pulled out another piece of paper and wrote on it, "Don't waste your time on the football team. They're all jerks and their thoughts on girls are only veni, vedi, vici." He reached behind him and dropped it on the desk of the girl. He heard the crinkle of paper as she opened it and probably read. The paper landed back on his desk. He opened it and read, "How dare you, you little wimp! You don't know Jason at all! You probably did something to make him hate you!" Casey's shoulders slumped and he wrote back, "Like exist?" The girl scrawled back in a frantic, furious looking writing, "Shut up you little creep! No wonder the whole cheerleading squad thinks you're a dork. You don't know anything!"

The bell rang. Casey picked up his bags and hurried out before the rest of the class. He made it to the courtyard without completely losing it and sat down over by a tree near the fence. The cafeteria he couldn't cope with then. He opened his fist and looked at the piece of paper crumpled up in the middle of his palm. 

"Good lord. What did that little paper do to deserve such torture?" said a voice from above him. He looked up and saw Kit standing at his feet. She plopped down next to him and pulled out her lunch bag.

"Don't mind me if I smell like a fetal pig. What is it?" she asked, reaching for the piece of paper. Casey made a little protesting noise and held the paper away from her. She reached across and grabbed his wrist and pulled his fist over to her. Prying his fingers apart, she managed to yank the little scrap of paper out of his grasp. Uncrumpling the paper, she quickly scanned the note. Casey looked down at his lunch and started to unwrap his roast beef sandwich. He didn't look up to see her expression. He expected some wise crack, or a threat to go find the disser and rip them limb from limb...actually Casey realized he had no idea what to expect from Kit. But the one thing she did do he completely didn't expect, and he thought it was completely out of character for her. 

"Oh, Casey," she said sympathetically, and re-crumpled the note and pressed it back into his hand. "I'm sorry. I had no idea. I'm sorry." She reached over and put her arm around Casey's shoulders and rested her head against his. "Want me to kill her for you?"

Okay, that was more to character. Casey shrugged. 

"No. That's okay."

Kit nodded and reached over to open her lunch bag. She pulled out a package of Twinkies.

"Here. Want the Twinkies?"

Casey looked up at Kit incredulously. She sighed. "No, on second thought, I like Twinkies too much. You can have half?" she offered. Casey let out a little laugh in spite of himself. Kit had to be insane. Either that or she was just really, really...really...weird. Either way it led to insanity. 

Senior Poll Category #1: Most likely to end up in a mental hospital.

Casey Conner: Katherine O'Connell

Stokely Mitchell: Stokely Mitchell

Delilah Profitt: Katherine O'Connell

Stan Rosado: Coach Willis

Gabe Santora: Coach Willis

Katherine O'Connell: Delilah Profitt

Zeke Tyler: Absent when ballot was handed out.


	7. Of kegs and underwear

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Rating: R, just in case anyone is opposed to the general idea of high school. And so I don't get sued for poisoning the minds of innocent children because I misrated my story.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit.

**************************************************************************************

Senior Poll Category #2: Most likely to become president

Casey Conner: Delilah Profitt or Kit O'Connell (the second name added after Kit saw the paper and started laughing so hard she fell over.)

Stokely Mitchell: Stan Rosado

Delilah Profitt: Delilah Profitt

Stan Rosado: Delilah Profitt (and then we'll cease to be a world power.)

Gabe Santora: Gabe Santora

Katherine O'Connell: Zeke Tyler will become president of the Pornographic States of America

Zeke Tyler: Principal Drake

Friday, October 30, 1998, before First Period

Delilah hurried over to Stan. "Hi, sweetie! Could you help me with these flyers for the party?" Delilah handed the pile to her quarterback boyfriend. "It's that sort of post-game night, Halloween costume party that Gabe's been planning for ages."

Stan looked resignedly at the pile of flyers in his arms. "Sure, Del. Who do I give them to?"

Delilah smiled sweetly at Stan. "The senior class, of course. Don't worry, honey. I'll be here to show you the don'ts about who to invite." 

Stan grimaced, thinking about Delilah's ideas about popularity, not based on personality but on clothes, money, attitude (but only an attitude conducive to Delilah's) and most importantly a letter jacket. Stan quickly changed his grimace into a smile. Delilah, interpreting this to mean he wouldn't invite anyone heinous, pecked him on the cheek.

"Thanks, sweetie."

Stan moved to his position by the door and started passing out (with Delilah's instructions called to him from across the hall) the flyers to the seniors, and few acceptable underclassmen. Stan glanced across the hall at Delilah and saw she was absorbed in talking to her friends from the cheerleading squad. Stan sighed and looked at the front walk. He glanced at the front steps and spotted two members of the senior class that he knew were *not* on the guest list. The new girl and that other kid...named...named....what was his name again? He grimaced again. The girl said something to the boy (were they dating? No, one of the guys on the team said the girl, Kit, had a boyfriend back on the ranch.) and he heard her say, "-no, Casey, I will not leave you alone and I will not stop making fun of Delilah."

Stan smiled at this and checked for Delilah. She was reapplying lipstick and listening to one of her friends talk. Stan looked at the two outcasts nearing and decided to invite them. For once, he decided to forget Delilah's list and be nice. He stepped over to the pair and handed them flyers. Casey kept his eyes fixed on the ground but Kit looked up at Stan. She took the flyers and smiled at him mischievously.

"You sure about this? I mean, inviting us two 'outcasts' to your big society party?" She leaned close to him and looked up at him, her eyebrow raised. "Better be careful. We might actually be..." she lowered her voice dramatically, "...fun." Stan laughed and Kit straightened up. "Well, I might be. I don't know, Casey would be if he talked more!" she said pointedly, shaking her companion's shoulder. Casey looked up for a second, then muttered a shy, "Thanks."

Stan shrugged and glanced back across the hall. Delilah was glaring at him and making a slashing motion across her throat. Stan shrugged and turned back to Kit and Casey. 

"Well, you know, if you can come. It'd be...you know, fun."

Kit smiled and glanced at the flyer. She looked at Stan and said in a leveling voice, perfectly straightforward, "The party's at Gabe's. He doesn't know you're inviting me, does he?"

Stan shifted his weight. "Well, no, it was actually kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing."

Casey raised his head when he heard Kit say, "I don't think he'd like me there, after I insulted him." 

Casey stared at Kit in amazement. Then, just when he thought she might be somewhere near empathetic, she spoke again. 

"Of course I'm coming anyway."

Stan laughed a little, then felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around.

"Hi Del. I've just been giving two fellow seniors the flyer for the party Saturday. They said they'd love to come."

Delilah smiled in a strained way. "I'm sure they would. So, ah...by the way, no one's going to be wearing costumes. So you don't need to bother with that. It's just, you know, for the whole principle of the thing. So you don't need to bother with any gaudy or elaborate things. No costumes at all."

Stan looked at Delilah sharply, but she turned her gaze to Casey and beamed at him. Casey swallowed.

"Going to have those pictures ready for the next issue, Casey?"

Casey nodded and smiled quickly. "Sure."

--- --- ---

Saturday, October 31, 1998, 7:30 p.m.

Kit stood in the lobby of the airport attracting stares. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss her father on the cheek.

"You sure you're alright with this, Kit?" asked Ben O'Connell to his only daughter. "We'll be only gone for a week. It's only to check up on the ranch. You sure you want to stay behind? This party is that important to you?"

"Daddy, I'll be fine. Mom, tell Dad I won't let any axe murderers in the house." 

"Ben, she's not going to let anyone in the house. Stop worrying. You'll make us miss our flight."

Kit nodded. "Yeah Dad. Don't miss your flight."

--- --- ---

Kit O'Connell

It's not like I want to go to this stupid party. I don't even like Gabe. I think he's a conceited jerk who can't tell a good deed from his own…no, I'm trying not to swear. But Delilah was invited. Which means Casey is going. He must like her, I mean if he didn't he wouldn't keep defending her whenever I start ragging on her. And I really think that if Casey's there alone with the football team and there's not even school administrators there to referee it. I mean, they're at school every day and look what happens anyway! So I have a feeling that if there isn't at least one person there on his side, something awful might happen to poor Casey…

--- --- ---

Casey Conner

You know, I really hate high school. I thought that when I got to be a senior everybody would stop picking on me like they have for the last five years of my life. But no, apparently I'm just going to be the pathetic little outcast for the rest of my life. Maybe if I go to college in Canada nobody will realize I was the school dork for all of high school. But at least now I'm invited to a really good party. All since sophomore year I've heard how great Gabe's parties always are, how there's always music, and dancing and beer. I've heard stories about the people too drunk to get home and the people who throw up on the neighbor's lawn gnomes. I don't know, maybe I'll get in a few drinks and prove I'm not such a little pure and perfect geek. It's great that there won't be costumes. I can't stand not knowing who I'm talking to. But with all the hypocrisy in school, that's pretty much every day. I mean, I don't really know Stokely. She seems really nice (if anti-social and reclusive), but she could be just like Allison in the Breakfast Club and steal stuff all the time. And who is Kit, really? Sometimes I think that everything she does is all a façade. She's way too weird to be real. I bet if anyone got in real trouble, she'd be gone in a flash. But I'm off subject. Can't wait for the party!

--- --- ---

Casey got out of the car and started up the walk quickly. His father leaned out the passenger side of the car and yelled out, "Be careful!"

Casey winced and hurried up. Even he knew how pathetic that sounded. As the car pulled away, Casey could already hear the jeers from the house. He hurried up the steps and reached for the front doorbell.

"Casey!"

The voice stopped his hand halfway to the button. He turned and saw a girl getting up from her seat on the porch swing. She walked quickly over to him. He looked closely at her face. It was Kit, but a Kit that looked very different from the Kit he knew. The Kit he knew wore jeans and a T-shirt, or baggy pants and a fitted blouse. The Kit he knew had thick dark hair that refused to look normal and was usually in a ponytail. Kit usually wore glasses. The girl in front of him had dark sleek hair reaching to her shoulders. Her green eyes were lined in dark kohl and her lips were painted gold. Casey looked at Kit up and down, trying to make sure it was actually her. Kit was wearing a very revealing net top that looked like it was just two dense mesh strips running from the back of her neck down her front covering her breasts. She was wearing gold lame slacks. Casey looked at Kit's face, his face feeling hot. Kit tugged on her hair.

"It's just a wig," she said carelessly.

Casey opened and closed his mouth a few times and finally blurted out, pointing at her top, "Isn't that underwear?" 

Kit laughed out loud. She then looked at Casey with an amused smile and said with a grin, "Marry me."

She chuckled again and then rang the doorbell for him. Delilah opened the door and looked out.

"Casey! Hello!" she said in a friendly tone. Casey looked at her with a kind of worship.

"Hello Delilah." 

"And this is…"

"Kit."

"Oh! Oh, Kit! That's right. You look…different."

Delilah was in costume, she was dressed as a peacock in shimmering blues, greens and purples. Kit decided not to mention that the colorful peacocks were male.

"What are you dressed as, Kit?" asked Casey, seeing the antagonistic light in her eyes.

"Kit? Kit? Who is this Kit? I am Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile."

Casey privately thought that the top made her look more like Queen of the Night, but decided not to say so. 

He turned to Delilah and stared. Suddenly a hand waved in front of his eyes.

"Hello? Are we going in, or are we going to just stare at Delilah?" asked Kit.

Casey jumped and looked at Kit and then back at Delilah. "You…you….look….umm….pretty."

Kit rolled her eyes and left the room. Casey smiled at Delilah shyly and hurried off into at her for a minute the living room. 

12:00 a.m.

"Hey, Casey!" yelled an inebriated Gabe, lifting his mouth from the spigot of the beer keg. Gabe was too inebriated to realize that the school geek was at his party. Gabe pushed aside his pirate eye patch and laughed.

"Can't see a thing with this damn thing on!"

Casey leaned back away from Gabe's disgusting beer breath.

"Yeah, I imagine not."

Gabe reached back his hand to slap Casey's back in a companionable manner, but he missed Casey completely.

"Come on, join in the fun, eh? Have a drink!"

Casey shook his head, but the room seemed to spin and sway around. The punch must be spiked, he registered dimly. Somehow, however, he found himself nodding and bending over in front of the spigot.

A few rooms away, Kit was sitting on a couch reading a copy of People Magazine. She idly flipped the page and checked her watch again. She reached over and grabbed her untouched cup of punch and brought it to her lips. She took a sip and immediately spat it back out, spraying Gabe's collection of Sports Illustrated with spiked punch. Kit made a face.

"Cheap vodka, too," Kit shrugged and heard a roar of laughter from the other room. She narrowed her eyes and held the cup over above the teak table. She slowly upturned the cup and poured the cheap punch all over the Sports Illustrated back issues. She shook the last few remaining drops out of the cup and threw it across the room.

"God. This would be so much easier if Nell were here. No, screw that. This would be so much easier if I just didn't come tonight."

1:00 a.m.

"Come on, Casey, just one more drink, man!"

Casey laughed. He wasn't sure what was really so funny, except that he just wanted to laugh. He nodded and laughed again. Jason, the linebacker, clapped Casey on the back. _God, this is great,_ thought Casey. _I'm finally one of them. I feel like I fit in. For the first time in my life, these guys aren't trying to make my life miserable. They're like my friends._ He leaned over and closed his mouth over the spigot on the keg and turned the knob. _These guys are great._ He felt blissful oblivion washing over him. Happiness swelled inside his mind, suffusing his senses and making all his thoughts melt away.

1:15 a.m.

Kit extended her leg, catching her toes on the bottom edge of the punch stained coffee table. She pushed and sent the table upturning, spilling wet magazines all over the rug. She dug the points of her stiletto heels into the rug. Suddenly she heard a yell from the other room.

"He's about out, man!"

Kit stood up and stretched her arms over her head. Her arm scraped against the coarse hair of the Cleopatra wig and she pulled the thing off and threw it in the corner of the room. Her hair was tightly pinned up on her head. She started yanking the pins out of her hair and sticking them in her pocket. When she finally removed all of the pins, her hair fell down around her shoulders in a thick mass of bobby-pin induced curls. She walked out into the living room and looked over at the card tables holding the kegs. Casey was laying on his back on the couch, giggling. Kit saw immediately that he was completely wasted. A couple of the guys from the football team were looking at him in a more sober manner. _Oh, Casey, you idiot,_ she thought mournfully. _You little naive idiot, you're supposed to put your tongue on the spigot so you don't swallow enough to get yourself completely, stupidly, moronically intoxicatingly_ drunk. The linebacker walked over to Casey and pulled him halfway off the couch.

"Hey," laughed Casey in confusion, "What's going on, guys? What...what are you doing?"

Kit's eyes clouded with pain for a moment and she hurried over.

"What are you doing? What the hell do you think you are doing?" yelled Kit. The linebacker let Casey slide back down onto the sofa.

"What the hell do you think? We're just having a bit of fun, ya know? You wanna join?" said one of the others.

Kit let out a little unamused laugh. "I think your brand of fun would only make me nauseous and homicidal. Leave him alone." Kit paused, seeing complete and utter unconcern in their eyes. "Fine. You wanna play? Let's play. Drinking contest. I win, you leave Casey alone. You win, I shut up about it."

Gabe shrugged and one corner of his mouth tilted up in what he thought was a cocky, attractive smile.

"Fine. You against me."

Kit nodded, and smirked at the thought of the loophole she had made for herself. See, knocking out the football team and taking Casey away by force did not fall under the taboo category of talking, as long as she didn't say anything while she kicked their collective asses. A few minutes later Kit surveyed the twelve shot glasses of vodka in front of her. Six each. Her concentration was less than helped by Casey laying on the opposite end of the couch laughing. Unfortunately, Kit knew that the only reason he wasn't vomiting all over Gabe's carpet was because he was nice and stationarily laying down on the couch. The second he moved, however, he was going to regret every single molecule of alcohol that ever passed his lips. She turned her attention back to the matter at hand: six shots of vodka. She cocked her head at Gabe and smiled.

"Bottoms up!"

They both grabbed the shots at the same time and started furiously downing them. Kit reached for the last one. Gabe's hand shot out for his sixth and knocked it to the side accidentally. It swept off the table and shattered on the parquet flooring. Kit threw back her head and laughed loudly.

"You are such an idiot!"

Gabe sat and stared at her empty shot glasses with gold lipstick marks on the white porcelain. She stood up, her heels crunching on broken glass, and moved to Casey's end of the couch. She shook his shoulder.

"C'mon Case. Time to go home."

She pulled on his shoulder and helped him to a sitting position. He looked up at her foggily.

"Kit? Wha…wha's going on?"

Kit smiled at his drunkeness. "Casey, it's time for you to go."

--- --- ---

Kit opened the passenger door to her convertible and half pushed Casey into the seat, half picked him up and put him there. She reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a few Burger King napkins. Casey's head lolled back against the backrest. Kit wiped off Casey's forehead. Suddenly his eyes focused and went wide. Kit recognized the look and quickly stepped to the side. Casey leaned over the side and threw up all over the sidewalk. Kit sighed and walked over to the storm drain and knelt in front of the opening. She stuck her finger in her throat and threw up all the alcohol she had just imbibed. She sat motionless for a minute, jittery from the revulsion. She hated to throw up. Hated it. After a minute she got in the car and started the engine. She leaned over and pulled Casey to the center of the front bench seat. He tried to concentrate on the road but soon felt his head slipping down to rest on Kit's shoulder. Kit turned into a driveway and stopped the car. 

Casey looked up and didn't recognize the house he was at. Kit had stopped the car. She opened the drivers door and he felt himself be dragged across the seat and out of the car. Kit had put the top back and locked the door. He was slipping, and even though he was trying to walk straight, he was just so tired, and the ground kept moving around. Suddenly he felt a familiar sensation, that of bitter bile in his throat. 

"Feel sicky," he managed to mumble before he fell down. As he was rid of more beer and what he was sure had to be his stomach lining, he felt a hand on his jaw holding his head straight so he wouldn't get any on him and an arm around his shoulders steadying him. He wiped his mouth off with the back of his arm and tried to prop himself back up with that arm but he felt it give way. His vision faded to gray and he dimly realized he was passing out drunk.

Kit groaned as she realized Casey had completely passed out. She managed to drag him through the front door and got him to the spiral staircase that led to her garage studio apartment. Somehow she managed to carry the unconscious Casey up the stairs and across her room. She dropped him onto her bed on top of the sheets. She unlaced his sneakers and took off his socks and set them neatly beside the bed. She lifted him up a little to pull the sheets out from under him and then covered him up. Kit gently placed his head in the center of the pillow and used the corner of the sheet to wipe off his forehead. She walked over to the other side of her room and turned on a nightlight and then walked back over to Casey. She sat down on the edge of the bed next to him and looked at his face, and the tear stains on his cheeks. Even as she watched him a tear ran down from the corner of his eye across his temple and into his hair from his closed eyes. She sighed.

"Poor Casey," she said softly, brushing the back of her hand across his forehead. "Poor little Casey."

--- --- ---

Kit O'Connell

1:36 a.m.

Well, Casey (whom I will now refer to as Grantaire) has gone to sleep. And I'm stuck sleeping in an inflatable chair. I am so hungry now. I think I'll listen to Elvis for a while before I go to sleep. In an inflatable chair.

Delilah Profitt

1:37 a.m.

Glad I left that party at midnight.


	8. Of hangovers and truth or dares and grou...

Title: Another Brick in the Wall 

Author: Lea of Mirkwood 

Rating: R, just in case anyone is opposed to the general idea of high school. And so I don't get sued for poisoning the minds of innocent children because I misrated my story. 

Disclaimer: I don't own the Faculty. I only own Kit. ******************************************************************************************************************************** 

Casey woke up the morning of November first with a few revalations_. One: This is not my room. Two: This is not my bed. Three: My head hurts and it also feels like it's been stuffed with cotton. _ Once he decided that he should get up and investigate the lack of familiarity in his surroundings, he sat up and looked down at the floor, then back up. Directly opposite him was a staircase. Seeing no better option, he decided to venture down it. The staircase ended in a kitchen. Sitting at the kitchen table was Kit, in sweatpants and a Greengrass High tank. Her hair was piled in a messy, pre-coffee snarl on top of her head and her rectangular framed glasses were back on their usual perch on her nose. She was hunched over a pile of homework and college applications. He cleared his throat quietly. Kit turned around and grinned at him. 

"Good morning!" 

"Why am I here?" he asked, drawing a complete blank on the night before, the blank starting at about eleven p.m. Kit smiled in a strange way and nodded her head from side to side. She tilted her head downward and looked at him over the rims of her glasses. 

"Why do you think you're here?" she asked suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows up and down. Casey's face reddened and he took a few steps backwards. 

"Wh..what do you mean?' he stammered. Kit snickered and reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him down to the seat next to her. She leaned close to him and bumped her forehead into his. 

"I'm just kidding, Casey. I wouldn't do anything without mutual consent." 

Somehow, Casey found himself less than comforted by this response, which implied previous consideration. 

"I'm…uhh…I knew that." 

She cocked her head and smiled sweetly. "Sure you did." 

He shook his head, clearing his mind of an image. "For a second, when you did that, you reminded me of…of…Delilah." 

Kit shuddered and shook her arms. "Heaven forbid I ever use that phrase or pose again." 

And there went the resemblance. 

"Come on Casey. Let's go to the Waffle House." 

"No, Kit, please, I just want-" 

"Not listening!" called Kit over her shoulder as she pulled the car keys off the rack. 

--- --- --- 

"Truth or dare." 

"What?" 

"Come on, Casey. Truth or dare?" 

"Why?" 

"Casey!" 

"Truth." 

"Do you have a girlfriend?" 

"No." 

Kit waited a few minutes, then, "Well?" 

"Well what?" 

"Ask me truth or dare!" 

"Truth or dare." 

"Dare. No, truth." 

"Uh," Casey mumbled, fiddling with a napkin. "Why me?" 

"You're interesting. Truth or dare." 

"I'm not going to pick dare, not with you." 

"Someday you will. I'll make sure of it." 

"Ha. Truth." 

"Do you like Delilah?" 

"I'm not going to answer that." 

"You have to. It's the rules." 

Casey bit his lower lip and looked down. "Yes," he said in a very small voice. 

"HA! I knew it," laughed Kit, leaning back and nearly falling out of the booth. 

"Truth or dare." 

"Dare," grinned Kit. 

"Ahh…..I dare you to…to…dress goth Monday." 

"Done. Truth or dare." 

"Truth." 

"How long have you liked her?" 

Casey's jaw dropped. "You can't ask me that!" 

"Yes I can. How long?"

"Since…since I was sixteen. A year." 

"Awwwww, ain't dat sweeeet?" 

"Truth or dare?" 

"Truth." 

"Why do you care?" 

"So I can torment you. Truth or dare." 

"Truth." 

"You have pictures of her on your wall, don't you?" 

"NO!……………………………yes." 

"Awwwww, ain't dat sweeeet?" 

Casey looked down at his lap, his cheeks pink and flushed. 

"Truth or dare, Kit."

"Dare." 

"I dare you to stop asking me about Delilah."

"Sure. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

Kit reached over across the table and tilted Casey's face up.

"Are those contacts?"

"What?"

"Those pretty blue eyes. Are they contacts?"

He leaned away. "No, they are not."

Just then the waitress set down two large plates of waffle in front of them. Kit speared a piece of waffle with her fork and stuffed it in her mouth. Gesturing with her fork, she said around a mouthful of waffle, "I hope you know you snored."

--- --- ---

"Yes, Mr. Conner. The party lasted longer than anyone thought. I know Casey from a couple classes, and I thought I'd check and see how he stayed the night. A lot of people stayed at Gabe's. Yes, Gabe is a nice guy. He's on the football team. Uh-huh. Well I left early. Yes, he's right here. Want me to bring him home now? Okay. Thank you very much Mr. Conner. It was nice talking to you too."

Kit hung up the phone and turned to Casey.

"Have fun being grilled about the party. Just say you were watching movies in the den and fell asleep in the middle of Gone With The Wind. If they ask why you have a headache, your head fell on the remote control, plus some of the jerks had the music too loud in the other room."

"You seem to be experienced in this area."

"Let's just say I was a problem child in tenth grade."

"Why am I not surprised?" said Casey, rolling his eyes.

--- --- ---

Casey's father sat down at the sofa.

"I don't know what's gotten into you Casey," he said sadly. "I feel like I don't know you as well as I thought I did."

Casey's jaw dropped. "Dad, I-"

"Oh, do you hear yourself, Wallace!?" asked Casey's mother in irritation. "You sound like Ward Cleaver." (Those of you who saw the Leave it to Beaver movie know why this is funny.)

Casey's shoulders slumped. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't call, but I thought you would have been fine with it. None of the kids were in any shape to drive except the host, and he didn't have the car for the night."

Okay, so that was just a little lie. And there had been someone to give him a ride, but he hadn't been in any condition to be home, but he didn't think his parents would have been okay with him spending the night at a girl's house. Even if it was just Kit.

"Casey, we're not mad at you. We just want to you be a little more responsible."

Casey's jaw dropped again. _Responsible??? I get straight A's!!_ he thought furiously.

"Now, Patricia, that's not it. He's plenty responsible. He just should be a little more thorough."

"Thorough?" echoed Casey in amazement before he could stop himself. His father glared at him and continued talking.

"Although now that I think of it, a little more responsibility would be nice."

"Dad, I just stayed the night."

"You broke your curfew!" roared his father unexpectedly. "Your mother was up all night worrying! I cannot believe your behavior!"

"Dad, I'm sorry. It was just one little mistake!"

"One little mistake, young man! Jesus, this is unbelievable. Goddammit, now my son's a juvenile delinquent. Is there anything else that can go wrong?"

"Oh," snapped Casey's mother, "so now that I've said he needs to be more responsible, it's your idea too?"

"I was not talking to you Patricia!"

Casey stared at his parents, shocked at his father calling his mother "Patricia." His father never called his mother Patricia. It was usually Pat or Patty. His father turned back to Casey and glared at him.

"You are grounded for the rest of the week!"

Casey stared at his parents in horror. He couldn't believe that this was his father spouting off all these TV Land cliches. Mrs. Conner pointed up the stairs and narrowed her eyes at her only son.

"Go to your room!"

Casey got up and slowly trudged to his room.

"No phone! No TV! No music! And none of your science fiction! I'll be up in a minute to remove all entertainment possible!"

Casey slumped down at his desk chair and leaned over, letting his head rest on the desk with a small thump.

--- --- ---

Kit flopped down on her bed and reached for the phone. She punched in a number purely from memory and waited.

Ring...ring...ring...

"Hello?" answered a deep male voice. A smile spread across her face as she took in the melody of the voice she knew so well.

"Hello...Rob McKay...you have been enrolled in the Obscene Phone Call of the month..." she said in a low voice, unable to keep the smile from creeping through into her voice.

"Kit! How are you?" asked Rob, the smile entering his voice as well. Kit giggled and kicked her leg out in pure happiness.

"Well, everything is normal- well, not normal, more like purely chaotic. Would you believe that there's some poor guy here that everyone picks on? They beat him up, they get him drunk and try to drag him off to do worse."

She could almost see him shrug. "Does he deserve it?"

"No, he's a really sweet guy! They got him wasted at a keg party I went to last night and I took him over here to let him stay."

"Oh?" asked Rob teasingly. "I hope you're not cheating on me with him."

Kit laughed. "You know I would never cheat on you! I love you."

"I love you too."

"I love you too."

"I love you more."

"No, I love you more."

"No, no, because I love you more..."

Kit giggled and then quieted. "I miss you."

"I miss you too, Kitty."

Kit smiled. Rob had called her Kitty since the eighth grade, when they had hated each other, just to annoy her when she had been calling herself Kate. Then in ninth grade, it was still Kitty. Then in tenth grade, when she'd been Rinn, he still called her Kitty. Finally she shortened it to Kit, and it stayed that way.

"I love you and I miss you and you are going to pay for this long distance phone call. I have to go. Love you always!"

"Love you too."

--- --- ---

I am so sorry about the mis-uploads. I really don't know what happened. When I uploaded them it wouldn't put any lines in between quotations, so it was a big, nearly unreadable blob. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I don't know what's wrong with ff.net's uploading, but I did the same thing I did with the others that worked perfectly! If anyone else has had this problem, please let me know in a review. Thank you.


	9. Of rumors and fights

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Chapter:

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: I do not own the Faculty or mean and obtrusive guidance counselors or those college books that make you feel like you're stupid and hopeless for not knowing what you're going to be when you grow up. I wish I did own them so I could hurt Zeke, steal Casey, hurt Delilah and slaughter and neuter and maim those boys who were running Casey on the flagpole, though not necessarily in that order. I would also make those guidance counselors pay, though leave the nice ones who let you transfer out of a boring class. I would burn those unholy books, and save the world from their self-esteem lowering text.

**************************************************************************************

Kit groaned and looked up at the ceiling and rolled her eyes back.

"I hate college applications..." she moaned melodramatically. She fell back forward and started banging her head against the table.

"Mom, can't I fill these in later?" called Casey to the other room. 'It's not like I have any life anyway...'

"No! You need to do them now!"

Casey looked down at the pile of applications. The names of the schools all blurred together. Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Ohio State. He groaned. Despite their prestigious backgrounds, none appealed to him. Then he noticed something. At the bottom of the pile was an application for the Savannah School of Design in Georgia. Specialty in art and graphic design. Some kind of interest sparked up in him. He could take photography and a few journalism classes. And best of all...it was as far away from his parents as he could get without going to the Sorbonne in Paris.

Zeke was laying, snoring on the couch in his house. Lying on the floor next to the table, next to the wall was an application for Herrington Community College, half filled out but left blank under Parent's Occupation.

Delilah pointed to the application for the University of Michigan.

"Stan, we should go here. They have a wonderful football program and cheerleading program. I could major in journalism and I'm sure there's something you could do that would...make you happy."

Stan stared at Delilah in amazement.

Stokely yawned and flipped her television to Sci-Fi.

"Do they have a college that lets me major in science fiction...?

Senior Poll #3: Most Likely to Succeed

Casey Conner: Delilah Profitt

Stokely Mitchell: At what?

Delilah Profitt: Delilah Profitt

Stan Rosado: At what?

Gabe Santora: Gabe Santora

Katherine O'Connell: I don't know.

Zeke Tyler: That weird girl who made all those guys leave that little geeky kid alone.

October 2, 1998

Zeke sat down on the trunk of his car and watched the students go by. None of them made any effort to go near him. He cracked a wry smile at that. It was like he was the plague. Then he saw the little light blue Mazda Miata pull up nearby. That new girl got out and started getting her things together. He eyed her speculatively. Not classically pretty at all, but more of a sharp look to her. But yeah, somehow her charisma made her somewhat attractive. Not that he was remotely interested in her romantically, but psychologically it would be interesting to see how she lasted out of the farm. She had to pass his car to get to the school. Here came the test. If she avoided the car, he wouldn't warn her. If she walked right past without flinching, he would warn her. She approached the car, her messenger bag bouncing against her hip as she reached her hands up to tighten a rubber band in her hair. Zeke stretched out his legs so they stuck out a good three feet away from the car, blocking her path. He grinned at her as she looked up at him. She grinned back, but in a edgier way, matching attitude with attitude.

"Ah, excuse me, can I get by here?" An innocent enough question, when put into print it seemed passive, but somehow the way she smiled as she said it made it more of a challenge, a little more dangerous. Zeke pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head.

"Hey," he said slowly, with an almost lazy air.

"Yeah, Hi. Can I get by here?"

Zeke raised his eyebrows. "Maybe. But I have something to tell you first."

She sighed. "No, I would not like to buy drugs; no, I would not like to buy porn; no, I will not go out with you; and no, you may not take my car for a joyride. Does that cover everything?"

Zeke's grin widened. "Not exactly, but you have a pretty good profile of my character."

"Yeah, well, I make it a point to watch people."

"You've been watching little Casey a lot lately."

"He's not little, and yes I have. Why is it your business?"

"How would you know?"

For a split second her face went blank, and then she got it. "Don't be crude."

"Well, you see, I'm not the one who started it. It's all over school. It's so interesting and scintillating. How Casey and the new girl hooked up after the football star's party and he went home with her. How engaging. It's been a while since there's been something so juicy here. And to add to the drama: the new girl has a boyfriend in another state. What would he think of this? I think they're going to be on this like a dog with a bone."

She stared at him for a few minutes, not speaking, just working out what he had just said and how this would affect things. Finally she spoke.

"Zeke, I appreciate you telling me this, but the way you seemed to delight in bringing bad news makes me like you even less than I did before, if that's possible."

Zeke laughed and let his sunglasses fall back onto the bridge of his nose.

"You passed the test."

"Any test given by you has to be worth very little."

Zeke laughed harder and held out his hand for her to shake. "What's your name? Kate?"

She reluctantly shook his hand. "Kit. Kit O'Connell."

"Nice to meet you."

"Yeah."

--- --- ---

Casey sat down in his seat in American History, stunned by what Kit had just told him. The bell rang and he mechanically pulled out his notes and started copying what was on the board. He glanced back at Kit and mouthed, "Are you serious???"

She gave him an exasperated look that he could clearly interpret in Kit-speak as, "Of course I am."

Casey turned back to the front of the room, a panicked look on his face. He wiped his forehead which had broken out into a cold sweat. He heard a small giggle to the right of him and looked down, imagining it was about him.

"He's such an idiot," came a whisper from the other side of the room. Casey flinched and tried not to hear.

"So desperate," said another hissing voice. Casey looked down at his paper and stopped taking notes, just concentrating on completely ignoring the voices all around him, mocking him and laughing at him. He looked back at Kit and only then heard the whispers of, "slut," "easy," and "freak-seeker." She was studiously copying down the notes. Casey turned his concentration to willing the floor to open up and swallow him whole.

--- --- ---

Kit sighed and opened her locker and took out her things. Casey, a few lockers down, wasn't there yet. She shoved her books into her backpack and popped a butterscotch candy into her mouth. Leaning against her locker, she ignored the masses moving by her like cattle, heading for the doors. She softly mooed at them, and a few students glared at her. Maybe that could be her term paper. How students are like cows. A few freshmen were stepped on across the hall, and they let out little yelps. Suddenly a shorter girl was shoved out of the way by one of the football players. She swung her purse around and smacked it into the football player's shoulder.

"Watch where you're going!" she yelled, and then stepped into the alcove next to Kit to wait out the cattle herd. She folded her arms across her chest and frowned.

"I hate being short," she muttered and turned to Kit, who was a good three inches taller.

"Hello tall person," she said good-naturedly. "I'm Gracie Simons."

Kit smiled. "Kit O'Connell. New student and current gossip subject."

"Senior despite vertically-challenged state," countered Gracie. Kit snorted.

"Well, you've seen Casey, right? He's only an inch taller than you."

Gracie frowned. "Who?"

Kit glanced up at the almost empty hall. "The one peeking out of the janitors closet."

Gracie looked over and her brow furrowed. "Is he okay?"

"Oh, just avoiding jock-inflicted physical abuse, cheerleader inflicted verbal abuse and slaughter of dignity and self-respect," said Kit absently. "Hey, Casey!" she called. The door to the janitors closet slammed shut.

"I would hide too, if I had to go through everything he does," explained Kit. She beckoned to Gracie. "C'mon. Let's go get Casey before he finds the jar of bleach and turns his shirt white."

She walked across the hall and opened the door. Casey stumbled backward and tripped over the mop and bucket of soapy water and fell over onto some cardboard boxes. The waster splashed all over and soaked his ankles and shoes. He looked up at the two girls. Kit snickered and then stopped abruptly.

"I'm sorry," she said, fighting off the giggles. "It's really not that funny..." She trailed off as she broke into peals of laughter, joined shortly by Gracie's giggles. Casey slowly picked himself up as the girls clutched the doorjamb for support. Kit doubled over, putting her hands on her thighs as she laughed so hard tears rolled down her cheeks. Casey stood there in a puddle of soapy water, watching the hysterical pair. Their giggles finally trailed off and Kit reached in and took Casey's arm and led him out. His wet Keds made little squelching noises which set them off again. Casey waited a few more minutes for them to quiet again. Finally Kit regained control, although the two were still grinning.

"Casey, this is Gracie. She's a senior like us."

Gracie smiled and said to Kit, "Actually you're in my gym class too. And now that I've seen him, I know he's in my Calc class, which I also have with you," she finished, pointing to Kit. Then she turned to Casey and said, "I just didn't know your name. How old are you guys? I'm seventeen."

"Seventeen," said Casey. "Turning eighteen in May."

"Seventeen, turning eighteen in two weeks!" said Kit happily. "Legal age, here I come!"

Gracie smiled. "Well, my birthday's in December, the fourteenth.

"Mine's the fifteenth of November," said Kit.

"May first," said Casey. He opened his locker and took out some of his notebooks and put them in his bag. Then he closed the locker door and locked it and rested his forehead on the cold metal of the door. Kit leaned up against the locker next to him, and peered at his face intently. After a minute she pecked him on the cheek, ruffled his hair and said, "Feel better." Then she turned to Gracie and started chattering away about a movie they both saw and then complained about the calculus homework. That caught Casey's attention.

"We had homework?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah, she only said it fifty times," said Gracie. Kit pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled down the page number and problems and stuffed it in the front pocket of Casey's shirt.

"There. Don't wash the shirt with the homework in it."

"How can you do that?" he suddenly burst out, yelling. "How can you just sit there and ignore what they're saying about you? They're calling you a slut! They're calling you freak-seeker! Can't you hear them? They're everywhere, and they're after me too! I can't even think and you're sitting over there completely oblivious! You're not even human! It's like you can't even feel!"

Gracie grimaced and handed Kit a scrap of paper with her email address. "I think I'll go now," she said, tactfully excusing herself. Casey continued to yell. 

"You're not normal! You should have left me at Gabe's! I'm grounded for a week because of you! You don't hear anything they say about you! Every time you speak to me in school you embarrass me! I try to avoid you but you won't leave me alone! They pick on me anyway! And you're just making it worse! You made it worse by helping me! Now I'm even more pathetic! You know why? Because I'm being 'helped,' if you can call it help, by the _school slut_! The school slut who seems to go out of her way to humiliate me and make me feel worse than before! It's inhuman! Why do you do this to me?! Why can't you leave me alone?"

Kit flinched and Casey stopped abruptly. Kit's face was set in an emotionless mask.

"Fuck you, you don't know anything about me. Nothing," she hissed. "How do you think it feels, having no friends, no one you know. Being completely uprooted from what you knew and all your friends. Just dropped into another world and expected to adapt. Inhuman? You think I'm inhuman? If I were inhuman I would let you get racked on the flagpole. I would laugh. I would let you get faced and I would watch Gabe and his asshole friends drop you on the highway somewhere where you didn't know where you were. Because that's what they would have done. So guess what? As of now you are back to ZERO friends. Can you count that? ZERO."

Kit turned and started walking down the hall away from Casey who was standing in the middle of the hall, only then realizing what he had just done.

--- --- ---

Kit O'Connell

It's not that I don't feel, it's just that I don't care. 

--- --- ---

Casey Conner

30 days until Christmas Vacation. 30 days until Christmas Vacation. 30 days until Christmas Vacation. 

--- --- ---


	10. Of whispers, hickory nuts and apologies

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: Own Kit, Greengrass High and it's students and Gracie. Own nothing else.

**************************************************************************************

Tuesday, November 3, 1998

Kit got out of her car slowly, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. She locked the door and tossed her keys into the side pocket of her bag. She had parked closer to the school today. She coldly passed the bus loop and headed towards the front doors. As she walked across the front lawn she heard male voices yelling, "One! Two! Three!" and a cry of "No, not the pole!" Kit's eyes moved towards the flagpole and Casey lying curled up on the ground. She looked at him for a moment and then turned her head and walked up the steps. Her shoulders hunched. She felt Casey's gaze boring into the back of her head. Her face flushed with shame and guilt. She walked towards the bank of pay phones by the entrance and picked up the receiver. It was - she checked her watch - six a.m. in Wyoming. She could call Rob. He would probably be feeding the horses. His mom would lean out the window and say, "Rob, it's Kit!" And he would drop the bucket of feed and vault over the fence and take the phone. His mom would shake her head with a little smile and he would say, "Hi honey!" and she would say...what? No, she couldn't call Rob. Nell? She would be sitting in the arbor probably reading or something. Nell she could talk to. She started to dial the number but stopped, hanging up the receiver and putting her hand to her throat. How could she talk long distance of she could barely speak for the lump in her throat? Tears pricked at her eyes and she searched the halls for a friendly face. Calculus was second period. She could sit next to Gracie in the back and ignore everyone. Suddenly she could hear everything. "Slut," hissed someone. "Freak-seeker," hissed another. She bit her lip and tried to focus on something else. She hurried over to her locker and opened it, putting her books inside. She finished and closed the door. A wolf whistle from behind her made her turn, ready to punch the whistler, but it was only Zeke, who hissed as he passed her, "Decided to come in to see how the gossip circle worked. Nice ass, by the way." 

Kit let her breath hiss out from between her teeth. "You are such a jerk," she hissed, her voice low and ragged. He turned and flashed a crooked grin at her and pointed his finger at her with a wink. Kit whirled around and pounded her fist on her locker door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Casey slowly walk in, his arm wrapped around his stomach, looking queasy. Kit watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye, wishing she could go over there to see if he was okay, feeling a burning shame that she hadn't tried to stop it, and feeling a deep hurt and fury because of his angry words still echoing in her head. Finally she slammed her hand on her locker again, tears welling up in her eyes. She blinked them away and turned away from Casey and out the front doors again. She barely made it to her car before the emotional tide broke loose. She didn't cry at all, just stood next to her car taking deep, ragged breaths. She opened the car door and sat down in the passenger seat. Forget American History.

--- --- ---

Casey watched an angry Kit storm out the front doors.

"I guess she is human after all," he muttered, slamming his locker door. He went to American History. No Kit. She didn't show up all class long. But there she was in Calculus, sitting in the back with Gracie. He took a seat at the front. He ate lunch in the bleachers. She ate in her car, spilling crumbs all over the seat and making her curse loudly and wipe off the seats frantically. She was not in their World Lit. class. 

--- --- ---

Casey Conner

When I was in sixth grade I had a friend named Justin. We were best friends. We'd hide from the pee-wee football team and the pee-wee wrestling team because they beat us up. The summer before seventh grade he went to Texas for summer camp. I went to day-camp because my parents didn't want me too far away. When seventh grade started I almost didn't recognize him. He had come back really tall and really muscular and his cousin had taught him how to play football, how to lift weights and how to shoot a gun. I was just naturally small, even then. We were good friends still, and he tried to teach me football, but I really didn't care so much. There was this girl I liked, her name was Joanie. I asked Justin to talk to her and find out if she liked me. She didn't, but she did like Justin, and they started dating. When I found out about this I yelled at Justin and said he did it on purpose. He yelled back and called me a little wimp with no backbone who would never get a girl. The next day he tried out for the football team, got in and never spoke to me again. One time I went to a game to see how it went. Joanie was a cheerleader. At the end of the game, when we won, Justin went over to Joanie and she pulled off his helmet and kissed him, right there in the middle of the field, not twenty feet away from me. All the parents (who were pretty much the only ones who went to middle school games) thought that was so cute and started taking pictures. I went home and cried myself to sleep for the loss of my best friend and the girl I liked. I haven't cried much since.

There's no crush involved now, but I think I lost another best friend.

--- --- ---

Friday, November 6, 1998, After school

Kit sat down on the front steps of the school, half-heartedly humming Hunk O Burnin Love. 

Casey started to walk down the front steps. Suddenly he heard someone humming and froze, peering down the steps. He saw the back of Kit's head and the two braided pigtails hanging down to her shoulder blades. He took a few cautious steps down the stair and then froze again as her humming stopped abruptly. Her back stiffened. He tiptoed down to the step she was on and sat down next to her, looking down at the ground. He sat silently for a minute, at a loss for words. Finally he opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry."

Kit blinked.

"I'm so, so sorry, Kit. I...I didn't mean it."

Kit smiled briefly. "I expect you did mean it, Casey."

"Please, Kit. I'm really sorry."

Only then did Kit look at him. She was silent, and then something in her eyes changed. She reached up and brushed his bangs aside to reveal a small bruise. She made a little tsk-ing noise and said softly, "What happened here?"

Casey sighed in relief and closed his eyes. Kit sighed in resignation.

"I guess I'm doomed, huh Case?"

He opened one eye. "Why?"

"It is impossible to stay mad at someone who can look so vulnerable." She grinned and picked up a hickory nut shell and chucked it at him. He opened his other eyes and stared at her.

"Hey!" he said indignantly. She got up quickly, leaving her backpack and ran down to the lawn. Casey picked up the shell she'd thrown at him and threw it back. She picked up a few more and threw them back.

"Vengeance!" she yelled, throwing another.

"Ah! No! Take that! And that!"

"No! I've been hit!" Kit clutched at her chest melodramatically and staggered. She threw another at Casey and miraculously recovered. He yelled and pretended to "die." Suddenly the two froze when they heard Coach Willis yell, "What are you kids doing out there? Stop throwing those fucking nuts!"

Kit snorted at the coach's choice of words and grabbed her backpack. Casey grabbed his bag as well and they sprinted across the lawn and across the parking lot. Casey waved to Kit and boarded the bus.

--- --- ---

Kit O'Connell

I felt really, really guilty about ignoring when the football team was ragging on him.

--- --- ---


	11. Of Don Quixote, birthdays and The Lone R...

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: If you sue me, all you'll get is an Elvis CD. I've told you already, I don't own The Faculty. 

*************************************************************************************'

Saturday, November 7, 1998

Kit's POV

I pull up to Herrington. Cutting the motor, I get out of the car and walk up the steps. No one is there, obviously. It's Saturday. The chilly autumn air swirls around me, making me pull my tan suede jacket a little bit tighter around my neck. I feel little wavy tendrils of my hair pull loose from my two braids and whip against my cheek. My breath puffs out in little white clouds. I know my cheeks are pink, and my glasses feel cold against my nose and ears. I walk up the lawn and look around at the deserted school. Even though I've been here for two months, I instinctively compare it to "home." Here everything seems so yellow. It's like the callousness of the students here has killed the verdant grass, turning it a stiff, dry straw color. Somehow, looking around at how impersonal it is here, I want to cry. I feel tears spring up in my eyes. The ground and the building blurs. I want to be home, with every fiber of my being. I want to be at home, sitting in my hut out in the fields, with all my friends. I want home. Ohio is not my home. I want to be back in Wyoming, where I have friends. I want to be standing under a tree, with Rob's arms around my shoulders, making me feel small and protected. I want to play speed with Nell in her arbor. I sit down on the steps where just yesterday my only friend here apologized. I want to be back with people who understand what I like and wouldn't make fun of me for singing Elvis songs at whim. I want to be home. There's no place like home, I think wistfully, clicking my heels together three times in some wild hope. I want to go home. Please, please, I want to go home. My birthday party can't come fast enough. Please, let me go home. I don't like it here. I reach up and pull a hickory branch down to me and look at the golden leaves. Fall is beautiful, but I want to go home. I sigh and turn back around. I slowly walk back to my car and get in, taking one last look at Herrington. Oh god. Let me go home. I want to go home. I get in and drive back to the house.

End Kit's POV

--- --- --- 

Thursday, November 19, 1998

Kit slid into her desk in World Lit next to Casey and passed him a note. He opened the small piece of paper.

Want to come to my birthday party?

Casey quickly scribbled back a response.

Okay. When is it?

The response came back in the form of a small paragraph.

It's the 26, 27 and 28. You'd come back the 29. It's Thanksgiving Break in Wyoming! We'd pay for the tickets, of course. Rob's parents are helping, they're travel agents as well as part-time ranchers.

Casey stared at the paper and then looked at Kit. She grinned widely at him and nodded. She was brought back to earth with a sudden thump with the sound of her full name spoken in Miss Burke's timid voice.

"Katherine? Could you present your report on Don Quixote?" Miss Burke said softly, twisting her handkerchief in her fingers nervously. Kit groaned and stood up, rolling her head as she stood dramatically. 

"Okey-dokey." Kit walked to the front of the room and spun around on her heel to face the class, loose-leaf paper in her hand filled with her slanting, loopy writing. Kit took a deep breath, tipping her head back. 

"Well," she said, nodding her head. She looked down at the kid in front of her and put her paper down on his desk. "Hey, could you, could you, like, hold that for me? Yeah, thanks. Okay. My report," Kit began, brushing her palms off on the sides of her jeans and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. She started to speak, her voice at first a little uncertain, but then getting stronger.

"In, uh, reading Don Quixote, the novel by Cervantes, I found that most of the common beliefs about the novel are…uh…complete and total…" Kit glanced at Miss Burke and then said firmly, "…complete bullshit."

The class looked up from their magazines. Kit grinned. She started gesturing with her arms as she spoke and started pacing up and down the front of the class, half thinking out loud and half lecturing.

"You see, most people think that what Don Quixote did was insanity and a delusion, something you should really pity or gawk at, but what it really was was sanity and enlightenment. Karmically speaking, he did only good. The only harm he did was make other around him insecure because of their total lack of knowledge about what was important in life. What he was was sane, he was the only sane person in the entire book! Sancho Panza was the only other one to even be close to sanity, but not really because he never really believed what Don Quixote knew in his heart was right. Love, truth, courtesy to fair maidens, all of that was completely lost with the Dark Ages. Some people believe that we could be, like, flying now if we'd just skipped the Arthurian period and the Dark Ages and gone straight to the Renaissance period, but it's not true. If we'd skipped the knights in shining armor we would be an amoral society. No man would open doors for ladies, - not like any do any way, well, I mean, some do, but not many,- and we'd all be killing each other in the streets and stuff. Don Quixote discovered what most of us only discover as we are dying: that life is completely fleeting and we shouldn't waste it with mistrust and prejudice and hate. Don Quixote knew that love was the only way to live and so he only hurt the evil, apparently windmills were evil then, and the unjust. I think that Dulcinea was like his light, the symbol of his love and as long as he had Dulcinea he could be truly happy. With love, he lived and because of love he was completely ostracized and taunted and put down for his beliefs, because they thought that just because this guy tries to kill windmills, hey, we can beat the shit out of him or humiliate him. He was turned out of society because society couldn't stand his goodness." Kit stopped her pacing for a minute and turned to the class, looking at Casey in the back of the class, smiling thoughtfully. "Not unlike a few people I know." She resumed pacing as if she had never paused. "So in conclusion, Don Quixote was the only sane character Cervantes wrote. In accepting love and light he was unaccepted by those who did not. And they were the truly ill and insane, those were the ones to be pitied. Not the only sane one. Not the one who loved and was just and true." Kit stopped and looked down at her boots, looking like she suddenly ran out of energy. She softly hummed a few bars of "To Each His Dulcinea," and then looked up again and grinned. "Okey-dokey. I'm done."

She stood at the front of the class for a few seconds as the students stared at her in a stunned silence. Kit bounced on the balls of her feet and then started back to her seat. The silence erupted into a buzz of whispers of amazement. Kit stood up again and walked back up to the front, retrieved her paper from the kid in the front row and sat back down. Casey looked at Kit fleetingly, stunned by the depth of her speech. Kit scrawled down something on a piece of paper and passed it to Casey. It was a harshly accurate sketch of Delilah with the words, "To Each His Dulcinea" scribbled at the bottom. "Don Casey," she mouthed, then said softly, "Donde esta tu Dulcinea? Con su enamorado, pero ella no se ama el. Tu adora ella, pero ella no adora tu, Casey. Hablas 'Dulcinea, te adoro, querida,' y ella habla Casey es loco. Eso si que es. Loco. Amor es loco.* But that's why we do it. Because it is crazy. And we need that type of insanity in our life."

*"Where is your Dulcinea? With her boyfriend, but she does not love him. You adore her, but she does not adore you, Casey. You say, 'Dulcinea, I adore you, dear,' and she says Casey is crazy. That's what it is. Crazy. Love is crazy." 

--- --- ---

Thursday, November 26, 1998

Greengrass, Wyoming

Kit leaned out the window of the passenger side and grinned. Casey uncomfortably shifted in his seat, wedged firmly between Kit and Kit's father, whom he hadn't met before. Ben O'Connell scooted over to give Casey a little more room. Casey's things were packed in the back seat of the cab in the pickup truck. Casey looked around at the scenery, a little awkwardly. Wyoming was so much different than Ohio. Another pickup truck was parked in the lot of a small general store. Geez, thought Casey, I didn't think those things existed outside of westerns. Mr, O'Connell saw this too and pulled into the lot as well with a, "Whoa!"

Casey lurched forward in his seat. It was a little unsettling when the child was a better driver than the parent, and Kit certainly was. Mr. O'Connell reached across Casey's lap to pat his daughter's knee. Kit turned and looked at her father questioningly. 

"Go on, take Casey with you. I'll drive the things back. You can have fun with the gang."

Casey had only a split second to worry about the use of the word "gang," before he suddenly had plenty of room to move, because Kit had left the truck. He looked over to the other pickup and saw a tall broad shouldered- there was no other word for him- cowboy get out and hold out his arms. Kit let out a shriek that Casey could hear a good twenty feet away and leapt into the cowboy's arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and laughing happily. Mr. O'Connell smiled in a fatherly manner and said, "They make a wonderful couple, don't they?"

Casey nodded. "Yes sir."

"You go one too. Kit wants you to meet her friends. She may be lacking in social skills at the moment but she'll recover soon and remember her manners," laughed Mr. O'Connell. Casey couldn't help liking Kit's father. Casey smiled in his usual furtive way.

"Yes Mr. O'Connell."

"Call me Ben. Please."

Casey echoed uncomfortably, "Ben. Yes sir."

Casey climbed out of the car and walked over to the car and group of teens that had by now piled out and were assembled around the lump of KitandCowboy. A girl about Kit's height approached Casey and smiled warmly. 

"You must be Casey. I'm Nell, Kit's other best friend."

Casey quickly smiled and said, "Yeah, that's me."

Casey looked at Nell. She looked like a young Isabella Rossellini. Her hair was a lighter shade of brown than Kit's and very straight, hanging down past her shoulder blades and she had dark brown eyes. Kit detached herself from the Lone Ranger and went over to sling her arm around Nell's neck. 

"People say we look like twins. You think so Case?"

Casey shook his head. "No. Not at all. People are blind."

Kit looked over her shoulder at a smaller girl still in the truck with strawberry blond curls and a pixie-ish look, staring at the scene with an expression of disdain.

"See Hayden? Now stop calling us Thing One and Thing Two."

"Well obviously your little geek friend here is blind. Hey, dorkus!" called Hayden to Casey. "Get out while you still can! My cousin's a freak and I can't believe we're related!"

Casey didn't like this girl.

Kit stormed over to the car and leaned into the cab of the truck, getting in Hayden's face.

"Don't you ever call Casey a geek, dork or any other rude name or I will break your fingers in half. Capisce?"

Hayden sighed and tossed her curls. "Reactionary much? I was just kidding."

"Ha. Ha. Ha."

The Lone Ranger decided it was his time to distract Kit from her cousin and said in a low, rumbly voice, "Hey, Kitty, you want to formally introduce me to your little keg chugging friend?"

__

She told him?! I can't believe she told him!!

Kit grinned, bouncing energetically back into the embrace of the Lone Ranger. 

"Casey, this is Rob. Rob, Casey."

Rob extended his hand for Casey and Casey took it and shook, glancing down at their hands and felt he had a marked lack of general butchness. Casey's pale, fine boned hand was nearly swallowed up in Rob's big bronze hand with it's callouses all over. Casey released Rob's hand.

"Nice to meet you," he said quietly.

--- --- ---

"So, Casey, I hear you work at the school paper," said Nell, passing him the plate of mashed potatoes. They were all converged around the table at the local steakhouse, eating and talking. All of Kit's friends were there and her parents as well. Casey smiled at Nell, who was sitting next to him.

"Yeah, that's right. I'm the photographer."

Nell smiled and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

"That's neat. So do you get invited to all the staff parties and stuff like that?"

"Yeah, I do. But I don't go."

Nell looked at him, puzzled. "You don't? Why not?"

Casey shrugged nervously, hoping he hadn't strayed into a touchy subject. "It's not really my thing."

Nell smiled again. "Good. It's not my thing either."

Kit's other cousin Hailey, Hayden's sister, (whom Casey liked a whole lot more than Hayden) smiled benevolently at the little flock of teenagers. Kit had informed Casey on the ride over – in between kisses with The Lone Ranger- that now that Hailey was a sophomore in college, she felt that her former peer group were "such dear little children," and enjoyed staring off into space and sighing in the manner she thought would befit a "woman of the world." It took Kit a considerable long time to say this because she was kissing Rob every four point two seconds. Alec, one of "the gang" Casey had only met on the car ride over to the steakhouse, was seated on the other side of Nell and eating enough food that would – as Nell put it emphatically – feed a starving Middle-Eastern family for a month. Alec had short, bristly black hair and gray eyes. 

"So how's school?" Kit asked, apparently to the whole table, but she was facing Rob. Nell reached over and grabbled Kit's face and turned it to face the rest of the table.

"We're over here, honey," said Nell wryly. Kit laughed in this way that Casey hadn't heard before and repeated her question.

"Better," said Nell, releasing Kit. Alec answered, his mouth full of food.

"It's shit."

Kit laughed. "It _can not_ be worse than Herrington."

Casey had just put a forkful of steak in his mouth and he shook his head emphatically and swallowed.

"Herrington is, like, Latin for hell or something. I hate it."

Katie, silent until now, spoke up and said, "Mrs. Walden is loading us down with these awful assignments. It's awful. I have to finish a three page paper on Freud."

"Well," said Alec teasingly. "It's your fault. You just _had_ to take psychology." He turned to Casey. "Katie here is going to be a shrink when she grows up so you better watch what you say. She'll psychobabble you to death."

"Hey!" said Katie in her soft voice. She was a petite Native American girl with her hair cut three inches long all over her head. "Alexander, you know that's not true. I only try to help people, not annoy them."

"Right," laughed Alec, winking at Casey. "Help people. Sure Katie." Casey had learned early on that Alec was definitely and original. An original _what_ he wasn't quite sure, but an original just the same.

"So, Rob. How's the horses?" asked Kit. Alec answered for him, mocking.

"Bitching."

Rob laughed. "What he said."

Casey looked around at the table of all Kit's friends. He saw Kit lean lightly on Rob's shoulder, smiling softly, and realized exactly why Kit didn't like it at Herrington.

--- --- ---

10 p.m., Kit's bedroom. 

Casey lay on the cot in Kit's bedroom, his eyes open, staring at the dark. He could just barely see the outline of Kit's bed a few feet away. 

"Casey?" he heard her say softly. "Are you still awake?"

Casey's mouth suddenly went dry as he opened it to respond. "Yeah," he said, his voice cracking.

"I'm sorry," she said sleepily.

"What for?"

"I didn't pay much attention to you."

Casey let out a breath. "That's okay. Nell was pretty nice."

He could barely see her smile. "You like her?"

Casey shrugged. "Yeah. She's nice."

"You think I look like her?" asked Kit sleepily, stretching her arm up over her head languorously. Casey swallowed, the complete abandonment Kit had subjected him to that afternoon still smarting.

"I think she's prettier," he said boldly. Kit chuckled and rolled over on her back. 

"I said I was sorry, didn't I?" she laughed, but then Casey saw she turned over and faced the wall, hunching her shoulders. Casey felt instant remorse. He was never one to insult people.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean it," he said, sitting halfway up and reaching across to put his hand on Kit's shoulder. She turned over and caught his hand and grinned.

"No damage. Go to sleep." 

Casey lay back down but they kept their hands linked for a few more minutes, just understanding somehow, in the strange way that best friends often do. Just being there.

--- --- ---

Kit woke up at five a.m. She didn't know why. It had been a long time since she'd felt any sort of urge to skimp on her sleep. She figured it had something to do with the fact that she felt truly at home, and this was her normal home routine. She sat up in her bed and raked her fingers through her hair. She scrunched up her nose and yawned in a particularly catlike way. She looked down at the cot next to her bed. Casey was sprawled out on the mattress, the gingham sheets tangled around his slight frame. His hand was still hanging over the side of the cot. Kit reached over back to her bed and grabbed her pillow and straightened her pillowcase. She walked over to the other side of the room to her closet and opened the doors. She stepped inside and shut the door, talking no chances on Casey seeing her in the buff. She emerged a few minutes later in a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off and blue jeans. She snatched her boots off the ground and pulled them on with a pair of blue socks. Kit started to go into the hallway and then stopped and turned back to Casey's cot. She reached down and brushed the backs of her fingers across his cheek and down the side of his neck, stopping and giving his shoulder a soft squeeze. She laughed softly. He looked so innocent in sleep. Kit shook her head and headed out of the room, carefully shutting the door after her. A few minutes later she was cantering across the fields on her horse, headed towards the McKay ranch. Rob met her halfway. They got off their horses and tethered them by a stream. Kit stood on tiptoes to fling her arms around Rob's neck. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers and Kit forgot everything else in the world as a white-hot heat coursed through her veins, shaking her down to her toes. His arms wrapped around her securely. Nothing existed for Kit except the hard muscles of Rob's arms and the insistent pressure of his mouth on hers. She pulled her mouth away long enough to gasp, "God, I missed you."

Then he covered her mouth with his and she forgot about speaking, forgot about thinking, forgot about anything. A bubble of happiness filled in her chest and she felt like her lungs were swelling and overflowing with joy as Rob rained kisses on her face and trailed kisses down her neck like fireflies. The fireflies fluttered along her collarbone and then back up the side of her neck and along her jaw and then captured her lips again. Kit resisted the urge to rake her fingernails up and down Rob's back, but instead brought her hand up to the back of Rob's head, her fingers tangling in his longish black hair. She clung to him like she was drowning, kissing him for all she was worth. The sun rose over the grassy hills, illuminating the two figures and the horses nearby with a rosy glow. Kit didn't know how long they stayed that way but she did notice that as Rob and she reluctantly went their separate ways for breakfast, the sun was very bright and definitely risen, whereas it had not even begun to rise when she woke up.


	12. Some Kind of Wonderful

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: I do not own The Faculty. I own the horse ranch. I own Kit and her family and the citizens of Greengrass. I do not own these songs.

*************************************************************************************************

Kit collapsed into the seat at the table next to her mother, smiling giddily. Her hair was mussed and her cheeks were flushed with a light pink. Mrs. O'Connell smiled knowingly and placed a plate of pancakes in front of her daughter. Casey, sitting across from Kit, looked up at her. Kit stuffed a forkful of pancake in her mouth and grinned.

"Want to go swimming today, Casey?" she asked cheerfully. Casey shrugged.

"Sure. I...didn't bring a suit, though."

Kit shrugged also, smiling broadly. "It doesn't matter. Wear your clothes." She stuffed another bite in her mouth. "Besides. Rob has to work today. So there's no chance of you feeling slighted."

"Will you invite the others?" asked Casey shyly. "They're...they're..."

Mrs. O'Connell stepped outside to feed their black labrador retriever. Kit smiled.

"They're better friends than you've ever had for a long time...is that what you were going to say?"

"Something like that."

--- --- ---

Katie, Nell, Kit, Alec and Casey walked their horses along the stream and through the waist high grass. Casey noticed, with some apprehension, that on every saddle but his a rifle hung. He reasoned that it was probably for mountain lions. A tether connected Casey's horse to Kit's hand. Alec turned to Katie and grinned wolfishly.

"Are you wearing that little two-piece again?"

Katie glared at Alec. "Why do you want to know? What does it matter to you?" she challenged in her soft voice.

Alec wolf whistled and then addressed Casey. "Katie's _stacked_, man."

Kit interjected, "Excuse me? That is so sexist and sizeist and male. Breasts do not make the woman."

"Yeah," added Nell. "The Grand Tetons are out and the Appalachians are in."

"The unbuffered shall shape the fashion industry," put in Kit. "C-cups no longer have the power. Us A and B girls are all-powerful."

"No offense, Katie," Nell said quickly. "But we need this power."

"Aw, come on. There's nothing better than..." Alec trailed off as all three females fixed glares on him. "Uhhh...Casey. What do you think?"

Casey pretended to think about it for a minute. "I think they both have definite advantages. The stacked are like eye candy..."

He stopped as all the girls gasped in indignation and their hands twitched towards the guns strapped to the saddles. Kit held the tether that led Casey's horse out over the ground.

"I'll drop it! The horse will go galloping off across the plains! I'll drop it, I will!"

"No!" cried Casey. "I take it back!"

Kit laughed and put the tether back where it went. "Good."

Once they arrived, Nell took the boom box out of her saddlebag. Casey marveled at this. He didn't know why it was so weird, it just was. The girls unsnapped the straps on their bib overalls and let them drop. Katie, with a glare in Alec's direction, pulled on a white shirt over her camel colored two-piece. Casey awkwardly pulled his blue t-shirt over his head and kicked off his shoes. Alec dove in, having never put on a shirt in the first place. Nell bent over to the CD player and turned it on, checking the CD function. She was wearing a navy style two-piece and her hair was braided in a long rope hanging down her back. The music started to play, sounding out-of-place in such a rural area with no electronics nearby. 

"Ohh, it's nice and warm!" called Katie, waist deep in the water. Alec sighed and floated up on his back, letting the water drift him around. Kit finished tethering the horses up to a tree with plenty of grass around and a bucket of water for them to drink out of. She reached over to turn up the music and unsnapped one strap on her overalls, then the other, while trying to put her hat neatly on top of the boom box. She let the denim overalls fall to the ground and she kicked them aside, revealing a black one-piece. Alec hooted from his floating position. Casey, still standing by the shore, turned around to look at Kit with interest. Somehow, he had never actually thought about the fact that Kit was anything more than a best friend, as an object of desire. He didn't like her like that, but he now could definitely understand how someone could see her as sexy. Kit grinned at Casey and ran towards him and wrapped her arms around his neck. They bothe fell into the water, Kit laughing as Casey came up for air, his hair plastered to his forehead. Kit giggled and splashed him. Oddly, he felt like his senses were on overdrive. The water seemed wetter, the music more clear, and he was acutely aware of the warmth of Nell's arms as she wrapped them around his shoulders, laughing. The music sounded in their ears. Katie grinned and sang along to the words playfully.

"Looove...love is strange. Lot of people take it for a game. Once you get it, you never wanna quit."

"After you've had it, you're in an awful fix. Many people don't understand..." added Nell. She laughed and dunked Casey underwater.

"Silvia..." called Alec to the music.

"Yes Mickey?" replied Kit, rising halfway out of the water and tilting her head playfully.

"How do you call your loverboy?" asked Alec, tossing his head.

"C'mere loverboy!" cried Kit, laughing, now stalking around the edge of the waterhole, waist deep.

"And if he doesn't answer?" sang Alec and Nell in unison.

"Ohh loverboy!" called Kit cajolingly.

"And if he _still_ doesn't answer?" inquired Katie.

"I simply say," said Kit sweetly, spreading her arms. "Baby...ohhh baby, my sweet baby...you're the one!"

Katie treaded water around Alec, teasingly. "Baby, ooohhh baby, my sweet baby, you're the one!"

--- --- ---

"Stay..."

"A-a-a-a-ah, just a little bit longer!"

"Please, please, please, please tell me you're going to."

"Now your daddy don't mind-"

"And your mommy don't mind-"

"If we have another dance-" added Casey, feeling completely carefree.

"Yeah, just one more!" wailed Alec melodramatically.

"One more time-"

"Oh, won't you stay just a little bit longer?"

"Please let me hear," all five sang together, "you say that you will, say you will! Won't you press your sweet lips to mine! Won't you say that you love me _all of the time!_"

"Stay just a little bit longer!" sang Kit loudly.

"Please, please, please, please, please tell me you're going to!" sang Katie.

"Come on, come on, come on..."

--- --- ---

Kit rode up to the house, softly singing under her breath.

"All you have to do is touch my hand, to show me you understand. And something happens to me that's some kind of wonderful. At any time my little world seems blue, I just have to look at you and everything seems to be some kind of wonderful."

Casey heard the quiet tune and finished for her, a bit awkwardly. "I know I can't express this feeling of tenderness. There's so much I wanna say but the right words just don't come my way."

Rob was waiting for them by the barn gate. He walked up to Kit's pinto and reached up and put his hands on the saddle horn. Kit leaned down to kiss her boyfriend, the gesture reminiscent of Ashley leaning down to kiss Melanie before going off to war in Gone With The Wind.

"Hey now, Robert McKay. Don't you let me catch you kissing my daughter!" said Mr. O'Connell, walking out of the barn. The couple broke apart sheepishly and Rob put his hands on Kit's waits and lifted her off her horse, Painted Thunder. "Casey, can you get off okay?" asked Mr. O'Connell. Casey nodded.

"Sure." He swung his leg over the back of the saddle and accidentally banged his elbow on the saddle horn. He dropped to the ground hard, but on his feet. He lifted one foot off the ground, then the other, attempting to bring the feeling back into the soles of his feet. He gratefully handed Highboy's reins to Mr. O'Connell, who patted Casey on the shoulder in a fatherly way.

"You liked riding?" he asked. Casey nodded again.

"It was great. So...real. I'm...thank you for having me here," said Casey with feeling. The corner of Mr. O'Connell's mouth turned up in a half-smile. 

"It's nice having you here, Casey. You're a good guest. I hear you're even a nice guest completely hung over. And you're a gentleman. There's something to be said for that."

Casey nodded dumbly, and then the meaning of what Mr. O'Connell had just said sunk in. "You...you...know? How? I mean-" Casey stammered.

"She told us. It was probably easier on her conscience to tell. And we understand. She did a good thing. I'm not one to pry into other people's domestic lives, but it probably was better that she did that instead of just driving you home completely sloshed. I don't approve of the method she used to get you out of there, let me tell you, but there's nothing to be done about that." Mr. O'Connell smiled again. "Let's go in. It's time for the real birthday party. I hear there's cake."

Casey managed a smile, but his mind was still reeling with the knowledge that these people had let him into their home after knowing about the...the..._thing_.

"Oh, and by the way," added Kit's father. "I wouldn't sit on anything hard. Sit on nice, soft cushions. Your seat's going to be plenty sore for a while."

--- --- ---


	13. Dirty Dancing

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: If I made up The Faculty I would not be fiddling with my stereo to make it work; I would have a new one. Also, there would have been no Casey/Delilah kiss at the end. So no, I do not own the Faculty. Just Kit, and Greengrass, Wyoming, which by the way does not exist. I do not own Dirty Dancing.

****************************************************************************************************

"The mountain lion crouched. It wiggled its hindquarters, narrowed its eyes to slits, fixing its predatory gaze on Thunder. And then...it _pounced_!"

The brush outside the hut thumped against the side of the wall and they all screamed.

"You guys, it's just a branch," said Kit exasperatedly. Nell shoved her.

"Well how were we supposed to know that?" she said nervously. Just then they heard an unearthly wail from right next to the hut, the wall Casey was leaning against. He yelped and launched himself towards the middle of the small circular space. Everyone looked at the door. It rattled. Rattled again. Rob crawled over and put his arms around Kit. Alec crept up behind Katie and reached around her and got a hand slapped for the effort. It rattled again.

"Boo!"

Everyone screamed and the hut came alive in a frenzied flurry of movement. As everyone was trying to get a spot farthest from the door or farthest under other people they all heard a deep masculine laugh. Kit peeked out from under Rob's arm and groaned.

"Da-ad..." she complained. Everyone started extricating themselves from where they had dived for cover. Hayden came out from behind the small folding chain, smoothing her strawberry-blond hair and glowering at her uncle.

"Uncle Benjamin," she said frostily. "That wasn't a bit funny."

Casey, who was trying to squirm his way out form under both Kit and Nell, was inclined to agree. Alec had made an attempt at chivalry and dove in front of Katie as the door opened. What had happened was, as Rob had tried to shield Kit, Kit had dived to the left to shove Nell and Casey to the ground, who were nearest. Rob had tried to continue to shield his girlfriend and had thrown himself on top, crushing Kit. Hayden (no one had leaped to shield her) had scurried behind the chair while Alec had skidded across the floor to throw himself in front of Katie, who had covered her head with a pillow. Casey had been sitting in front of Nell, and when Kit had launched herself over, he had quickly laid down to avoid being crushed. Unfortunately, this had also made it easier for Nell and Kit to fall on top of him. He now managed to get out. Everyone stared at Kit's father for a few minutes and then looked around at what they were doing and started to laugh. When they finally calmed down, Mr. O'Connell shook his head ruefully.

"Good thing I didn't wear my cougar mask."

"Daddy, was that _you_ doing the scream?" asked Kit accusingly.

"Me? No," said Mr. O'Connell gravely. "It wasn't me. It might have been Goldie, the she-lion of these parts."

Casey paled.

"Or," added Mr. O'Connell, pulling something out of his bag. "It just might have been this," he said, holding out a small tape player. He grinned.

"Da-ad!" groaned Kit as the rest of the cabin went, "Mr. O'Con-_nell_!"

He laughed. "Don't mind me, guys. But here. Doritos, Coke, Cheetos and a couple movies. You've already got the," he paused, looking at the folding chair. "already got the TV, so I guess you're set! Good night everybody!"

"'Night, Daddy," said Kit, kissing him on the cheek. "Love you!"

"Love you too, sweetie. Now don't go outside without the Winchester."

"Won't. See you tomorrow!"

"See you. Good night girls...and guys!" he added hurriedly. "No funny business! Kit, don't forget the _other_ use for the Winchester!"

And with that, he ducked out and shut the door behind him.

"Awww...did widdle Hayden get scared?" cooed Kit. "Was widdle Hayden terrified? I noticed no one leaped to save Hayden, did they?"

"Like you weren't scared," scoffed Hayden.

"Like you weren't scared," mimicked Katie and Nell together, rolling their eyes. Everyone settled back against the walls and Kit walked on her knees to the center of the circular hut.

"Okay, people! What do we want to do first?"

"Movies and cake! Movies and cake!" cheered Alec and Katie.

"Any other votes from the peanut galleria?" called Kit. Silence. "And movies and cake it is!" finished Kit, bowing to the rest of the hut. Rob reached out and caught her around the waist and pulled her over onto his lap. She giggled and called out her next vote from the safety of Rob's arms. "What movie?" (The Faculty, The Faculty! Wait, that wouldn't work!)

"Lethal Weapon!" yelled Nell. (*salutes Rene*)

"Terminator!" yelled Rob. Kit clapped her hands over her ears. ("Oh, I'm sorry, Kit. Are you okay?")

"Dirty Dancing!" yelled Katie.

"Dirty Dancing!" added Alec.

"The Shining!" voted Casey. Everyone shivered. (C'mon, The Shining, outside, in the dark, in mountain lion country. No way. That's like watching _Signs_ in an outdoor theater in a cornfield.)

"Excalibur-"

Hayden barely got the word out when everyone but Casey yelled, "No!"

Kit sat up straight. "Okay, okay, okay! The only one with two votes wins! Dirty Dancing! Plus, I vote for it too." 

As the previews were rolling, Kit stood up in the middle of the hut to announce the rules of viewing.

"Okay, here are the rules! You have to dance! ("Oh no" murmured Casey) Any time they get up to dance, we must dance too. That is in exception to the Shelldrake mambo number and the end dance. However, with the end dance, after their solo is done and Baby does the lift, then you may dance. Everyone must sing when they sing. And what do we all yell?" cried Kit, cupping her hand to her ear.

"Nobody puts Baby in the corner!" yelled everyone except Rob and Casey. Casey, because he hadn't seen Dirty Dancing before and Rob because he was sick of Dirty Dancing.

"Okay, everybody be quiet! It's starting!" announced Nell.

__

"That was the summer of 1963 when everybody called me Baby, and it didn't occur to me to mind. That was before president Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn't wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I'd never find a guy as great as my dad."

"Aw, how sweet. Katie, isn't there a name for that kind of thing? Like the opposite of an Oedipus syndrome?"

"I don't know, I haven't read about that yet."

"Oh, okay."

__

"Oh my god! Look at that mom, I should have brought those coral shoes, you said I was taking too much!"

"Well sweetheart you brought ten pairs!"

"But the Coral shoes match that dress!"

"Oh, the pain! The loss of coral shoes! I feel for you, really," mocked Kit.

__

Penny and Johnny are doing the mambo.

"God, I want to learn how to do that," sighed Kit and Nell together.

__

"Can you keep a secret? Your parents would kill you. Max would kill me!"

"Do you love me? (I can really move)

Do you love me? (I'm in the groove)

Ah do you love? (Do you love me)

Now that I can dance (dance)

Watch me now, oh!"

"Okay! Dancing!" yelled Katie.

"Oh, no. No, I think I'll just stay right here," said Casey, blushing crimson. Hayden stood up and looked at everyone else. 

"Oh come on!" begged Kit. "There's a shortage of guys! Nell's already sitting it out, you can at least make an effort!"

Casey shook his head, mute. He hissed at Kit, "Kit. I hardly know these people."

Kit frowned. "Well, you know me." She politely excused herself from Rob and held out her hand to Casey. He took it, and she pulled him up.

"There you go!" she laughed easily. "Put your arm here. Okay, now like this... good! That's better."

Casey loosely wrapped his arms around Kit's waist and she put her arms around his neck. Neither of them noticed when Rob started dancing with Hayden.

__

"I'm sorry you had to see that. Sometimes in this world you see things you don't want to see."

"Like you!"

__

"I've been meaning to tell you

I've got this feelin' that won't subside..."

"Oh god! Oh, I love this song!"

__

"I look at you and I fantasize

You're mine tonight

Now I've got you in my sights

With these hungry eyes."

Kit jumped up and grabbed Rob by the hand and pulled him up to her. Kit gazed into his eyes with an intense look that made everyone else in the room look away.

__

"Me! I'm scared of everything, I'm scared of what I saw, of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you!"

--- --- ---

"Okay, now that we've indulged in Kit's little obsession with Dirty Dancing-"

"Which is probably because that's all she and Rob do at school dances," interjected Alec. "Sorry, Katie. Do go on."

"Thank you. Anyway, I think we should indulge in a little healthy game of truth or dare."

Casey groaned, remembering the last time he'd played truth or dare with Kit, and the humiliating secrets he'd been coerced into revealing.

"Oh, I'll pass," he said uncomfortably. Kit laughed.

"Casey doesn't like truth or dare since I made him reveal his deepest, darkest secrets to me the night after he got drunk."

"Oh that sounds interesting," laughed Nell, reaching for some popcorn. They all laughed.

--- --- ---

It was late. Everyone was feeling a sort of languid exhaustion. Casey shifted against the pillows piled against the wall. His eyelids started getting heavy, but not with sleepiness. He felt so completely content and _stuffed!_ He hadn't consumed so much junk food since middle school. He glanced over at Kit and Rob. Kit's head was resting on Rob's chest and Rob's hand was lightly resting on Kit's stomach. Nell was leaning against the same mountain of pillows, telling Casey in a completely animated way about last year's school polls.

"Kit and Rob won 'Most Likely to Have Ten Children.' I won 'Most Likely to Meet Stephen King On A Flight To Newark.' Alec was 'Most Likely to End Up in Jail,' I really don't know why! They obviously didn't know about the time Kit Silly Stringed the bronze cougar in the courtyard-"

Casey laughed, then shook his head. "Sorry. Go on."

"Yeah, retellings of that incident usually bring a pretty strong reaction! Anyway, Katie was 'Most Likely to Psycho-analyze Hannibal Lecter.'"

"What was Hayden?"

Nell leaned towards Casey conspiratorially. "'Most Likely to Eat Own Young.'"

Casey burst out laughing along with Nell.

--- --- ---

****

VOTING TIME!!!!

This is my reader input section. Angelina, don't even bother. ^^ send in a review for a response. Thanks! Love you all!

Vote: who should end up together at the end?

Vote: Should Kit go to the Winter Dance? Should Casey go to the winter dance? Should Zeke go to the Winter Dance? Should Stokely?

Kit should go. Casey should go. Kit and Casey should go. Stokely should go. Kit and Casey should stay home and watch movies. Zeke should go. Zeke and Kit should go together. (If anyone picks this I will tear my hair out and kill Zeke in the next chapter.) 

Vote: Should there be one big fight scene in which Kit and Delilah try to kill each other? (oh, please? I really want to have Kit kick her boo-tay)

Vote: Should I write for the summer after senior year? (I'm already going to write college and adulthood, so don't worry, but I thought a summer would be fun.)


	14. I'm In Love With My Car I'm sorry! I'll ...

A Song for Zeke (I was looking up the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody and I saw the title "I'm in love with my car" and I immediately thought "ZEKE!")

(Yeah, I know, not an actual chapter, but I have this giant math project to do. Also, it has come to my attention that someone has attempted to rip off this fic. Go look under Faculty fics "My Facutly story (use to be titled My quick Story)" and read Fluta jai's review. See what you think.)

(Note to my sisters: Yeah, yeah, I know, shut up. Split personality schizo thing here. But anonymity is nice and I don't want to be overly accusatory. Don't blow it, okay?)

****

I'm In Love With My Car

Words and music by Roger Taylor

The machine of a dream

Such a clean machine

With the pistons a pumpin'

And the hub caps all gleam

When I'm holdin' your wheel

All I hear is your gear

When my hand's on your grease gun

Oh it's like a disease son

I'm in love with my car

Gotta feel for my automobile

Get a grip on my boy racer rollbar

Such a thrill when your radials squeal

Told my girl I'll have to forget her

Rather buy me a new carburetor

So she made tracks sayin'

This is the end now

Cars don't talk back

They're just four wheeled friends now

When I'm holdin your wheel

All I hear is your gear

When I'm cruisin' in overdrive

Don't have to listen to no run of the mill talk jive

I'm in love with my car

Gotta feel for my automobile

I'm in love with my car

String back gloves in my automolove

New chapter up soon in lieu of this one! This just a place holder. Voting results are in and I have the direction for the plot. Thanks for all your help! Keep reading and reviewing and I love you all!

Special Kudos and Love to: Erendil, Kadama (Luvs to my sistah! You rule, Master Samwise! Go read her fics!), Willowvilya aka Kay, Tenchi-sama, Jess, Invader Zim, dizzy izzy (go read her fic too!), elijahs angel, Reenie-chans (I love you Merry! In a strictly non-lesbian way..), Nahana (The Masked Banana thrower! Also known as the Blond Rangerette of the North, Aragorn!), Ryo-Boshi-Grey Hobo (Go Gandalf!), SchizoKit (42!), Ri-chan (Elijah rules! Love you Frodo with the obscenely blue eyes!), Captain Swoots and finally Plato's Tragedy (I really love your Birdie fic! I have a high opinion of you as an author. Keep it up! Everyone, go read "How The Last Feather Fell" by Plato's Tragedy and cry, like I did.)

No thanks to Angelina the Cowardly Flamer and Mademoiselle-Melissa the Evil Plagiarizer.

Keep reading!

__

"Kit, stop throwing paper wads at Delilah."

"I can't help it! Her head is just inflating like a balloon! I have to hit it! It's such an easy target!"

"Katherine O'Connell!"

"Oops. Sorry Principal Drake!"

"I don't know you, Kit..."


	15. Detention, Sexiness, Plots and Plans

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: Own Kit, own the plot. They are mine. You take them and you die. Do not own The Faculty. I do not own Casey, although Christmas is coming up soon.

************************************************************************

Tuesday, December 1, 1998

"What a moronic existence."

Kit propped her feet up onto her desk and they were promptly knocked back onto the floor by Coach Willis. He glared at her in repressed fury. She sighed and glanced across the room. The only other people in the room were Gabe, Jason and Casey. The other three guys were slightly hunched over, their hands tightly balled up and pressed into their laps. Kit glanced over at Casey, who gave her a tight smile and looked back down. Kit sighed and spoke up.

"Coach Willis, could you clarify something for me? Could you explain to me exactly why Casey has to be here?"

Coach Willis whirled back around and stalked over to Kit's desk. 

"What did you just say?"

Kit leaned forward. "I'm just wondering about the logistics of your decision. I understand why I am here, since I now understand that it is morally inappropriate and wrong to damage a guy's balls, and I understand why Santora and Carlson are here, for the same aforementioned reason, but to detain Mr. Conner simply because it was also his balls that were damaged is completely unnecessary. I can see the crime, though clearly not intentional but also completely unprevented, of the total lack of IQ points of Santora and Carlson over there, equal to the number on their jerseys-" Gabe and Jason had started to uncurl from around their injured balls and were staring at Kit with a hatred unrivaled since the French Revolution "-but what exactly was Casey's crime? Not being a football player?"

Coach Willis had turned purple.

"Would you like to see me here in detention tomorrow, young lady?"

Kit sighed and leaned back in her chair. "I don't know. I have to check my calender."

"There you go, young lady! I will see you tomorrow! You want another? You through?"

Kit lazily saluted. "Yes sir, Coach Willis, sir!"

He strode back to the front of the room. "I suppose you all think you're funny. I suppose you think you're so fucking amusing. Getting into a fight the first day back from Thanksgiving. I'd be giving thanks if I were you!"

Kit turned her hands up and cast her eyes heavenward. "Dear God, thank you for this detention, for the gum under my desk, for letting all us white people give the Indians blankets infected with smallpox and thank you, oh thank you, dear God, for putting me here in this God-forsaken hellhole. God bless Herrington. You want to give thanks for anything Casey?"

Casey sighed. "Thank god for that fucking flagpole. God bless the fucking football team. May their balls shrivel up," he muttered so only Kit could hear. Out loud he said, "Thank you Lord for the flagpole."

Coach Willis turned to his football players. "You all! I know you fool around. Everyone fools around. But you let a girl get the better of you. And you fought. That's why you're here today!"

The football players sighed and shifted in their seats.

"I think they kicked themselves in the balls!" put in Kit.

--- --- ---

Kit O'Connell

Who is sexy? Rob? You bet your cookies he is. Mmm...those wide shoulders, brown eyes...sexy. Very sexy. Let's see. Who else? Patrick Swayze. Stan. Stan is...I don't know. Cute. Not exactly SEXY, though. But cute.

--- --- ---

Casey Conner

Sexy. Delilah is sexy. She's also beautiful. Almost angelic. Lovely. I guess Kit could be sexy, too. I don't know. 

--- --- ---

Zeke Tyler

Oh, you want to know who's sexy? Mrs. Brummell. Oh yeah, she is one sexy bitch. I don't know. New girl's sexy. That little blond girl she hangs out with is sexy too. Not Delilah. Too frigid.

--- --- ---

Wednesday, September 9, 1998

The phone was ringing. Kit groaned and picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Kit. Hi. This is Mrs. McKay."

Kit frowned. Mrs. McKay? Why was Rob's mom calling her?

"Yes?"

Mrs. McKay soon cut to the chase.

"Kit, I am so sorry. But my son..." her voice cracked. "God, Rob..."

Kit paled. "Oh Jesus. Is he okay? Did something happen?"

"Oh! Oh, no, dear lord, he's well."

Kit groaned. 

"But it's something. Look, you're such a sweet girl. I have always liked you as a match for Rob. But my son is doing something terrible. He's in there. With that cousin of yours. Hayden."

Kit laughed. "Mrs. McKay, I trust Rob. I'll love him forever. I trust him. And when he comes this Saturday, I'll prove it to him. Goodnight, Mrs. McKay. Thank you for thinking of me."

Kit hung up and rolled back over and reached under her pillow and pulled out a small box of condoms. Saturday. Her parents were going to be out. And she and Rob would be together for the rest of their lives.

--- --- ---

Thanks to all readers! Dundundun. More plot twists.


	16. The pieces of my broken heart

Special Episode: Two Parter!

**__**

The Pieces of My Broken Heart

"I'll be back in an hour! A little more if the flight gets delayed, okay?" called Kit back to the car. She turned and walked into the airport. There was a lady standing behind the information desk, and above her, a flight schedule. Flights from Wyoming were coming in at Terminal 7. That was down near a bank of phones by the little cafes. She headed that way. It was Saturday. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. Kit found a seat near the jetway and sat down, tapping her foot. It was 10:45. Rob's flight came in at eleven. Fifteen minutes.

Fifteen minutes passes by. The flight came. Kit craned her neck to look. Suddenly she caught sight of broad shoulders and black hair.

"Rob!" she called, leaping up from her seat and taking a few steps towards him. He kept walking. She started to jog a little and grabbed his arm. He spun around.

It wasn't Rob.

"Sorry," chirped Kit. "Thought you were someone else!"

She sat back down and decided Rob had been delayed. He would be on the next flight.

5:00 p.m.

Kit stood up, shakily. She calmly took the bus back home. She picked up the phone and dialed, her hands shaking and her eyes stinging with tears of betrayal. Thank God he picked up. Thank God. Her heart felt a little more comforted when she heard the "hello," on the other end. She took a deep breath and spoke.

"Casey?"

She took another deep breath.

"Could you come over?"

11 a.m. That morning, Wyoming. What had happened.

__

There was hay everywhere. Rob's mouth was on Hayden's, insistent. His hands twined in her red hair and held her closer. For a second Hayden pulled back and whispered for an explanation.

"Why are you doing this? Mad at my perfect little cousin?"

Rob's crisp black hair brushed against her cheek as he kissed her neck and shoulder.

"Kit can't have it both ways. I know-" kiss "she's got that little wimp wrapped around her little finger. She can't have both me and him."

Hayden's breath was shallow, and she batted Rob's hands away from her buttoned blouse.

"So what?"

"So what?" Rob growled, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. "So what? That girl needs something to control. She had the horses here, but when she got out, she needed something else. So she picked him. It's freakish. She can be such a bitch. Hypocritical bitch." Rob paused. "Why are you doing this?"

"Kit had everything. She had her friends. She was always outstripping me in everything. Always perfect. Now she's got two guys. It's sick."

Rob's mouth twisted into a half-smile. "Fuck. I really loved her. Two-timing bitch."

Hayden's heart wrenched. "You don't need her. Neither of us do. Bitch."

She reached up and pulled Rob's head back down to hers.

No one thought about the airport.


	17. are so small they could pass through the...

Coarse language. Earns the rating of R.

The Pieces of My Broken Heart II

Casey parked his bike outside the door and knocked. Kit opened in a few seconds, her face carefully blank. She smiled wanly.

"Hi," she said hoarsely. "Parents went out to eat. Come on in."

She stepped back and Casey followed her in and up to her room. He looked around in confusion.

"Kit. Where's Rob?" Casey had an idea, but didn't speak it.

"He didn't come. That bastard didn't come. He probably fucked my cousin."

She shook her head. "God. I'm such an idiot."

She picked up the phone and handed Casey an extension. Casey sat down next to Kit on the bed and watched her dial the number slowly, reluctantly, as if she didn't want to call and find out anything.

"Hello?" asked Rob groggily. Casey put his arm around Kit's shoulders when he saw her eyes start to well up.

"Rob?" she squeaked. "It's Kit. Why…where are you? I mean. Why aren't you here?"

"Frankly, Kit-" _You don't give a damn_, finished Casey in his mind.

"-I don't want to see you. I think it would be best if we didn't see each other anymore."

Kit's jaw dropped. "What? Why?"

Rob sighed. "I think it would be best for both of us if we just broke up."

Kit looked panicked. "You're dumping me?" she asked bleakly.

"Not really dumping. I just think we're growing apart as people. It would be-"

"You're dumping me!" repeated Kit.

"Well, fuck it, Kit, stop being such a goddamned parrot! Yes, fine then! I'm dumping you! Now go tell your friends what a chump I am."

"You're dumping me over the phone?"

"That's what you're talking on, isn't it?"

Kit blinked at his callousness. "Rob, what's wrong?"

Silence, then…

"WHAT'S WRONG?" exploded Rob. "You are such a bitch! You bitch! I don't believe you! You act so fucking innocent!"

"Maybe because I am innocent!" snapped Kit.

"You are such a fucking liar. I do not believe you. I know, okay, Kit? So stop pretending. I know."

"You know what?"

"Goddammit, Kit, I know about you! I know what you've been doing behind my back!"

"Doing what behind your back?" Kit's voice became suddenly very cold.

"I know about you and Casey, okay? I know you're cheating on me with him."

Casey felt Kit get very tense and she shrugged his arm away and stood up, narrowing her eyes.

"I'm what?" she said in a low, dangerous voice.

"You've probably fucked the little bastard. That little-"  
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP, YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Kit screamed, and Casey held the extension away from his ear.

"HOW DARE YOU!" shrieked Kit into the phone. "I LOVED YOU, YOU BASTARD! I NEVER LAID A HAND ON CASEY! I WOULDN'T DO THAT TO YOU!"

"Kit, don't you dare yell at me-"

"FUCK YOU!" screamed Kit at the top of her lungs. Casey stared at her. Her eyes were narrowed. She was on the breaking point and looked very, very dangerous.

"WHAT?" yelled Rob.

"FUCK! YOU!" Kit hollered at the phone. "Your mother called me! I know what you did, you asshole! What did you do with her, huh? Did you go all the way? Did you fuck her, Rob? Did you make it with my COUSIN?"

"Don't you start with me, you sanctimonious bitch! Go fuck that little girly boy you keep around for a toy-"

That did it.

"I NEVER TOUCHED HIM! I NEVER TOUCHED HIM! YOU SON OF A BITCH! FUCK YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

Kit ran over to the desk and started hitting the phone on the desktop furiously, screaming at the top of her lungs. "I hate you! I hate you!"

Casey ran over and grabbed Kit's hand and wrenched the phone from her hands, prying each finger open and finally pressing off. The second the little beep echoed in the room, Kit dropped the phone and stopped screaming. She stopped moving enough for Casey to see the tear streaks down her cheeks. She went limp and slid down to the floor, drained.

"That lying bastard. That little shit. That…son of a bitch." She suddenly blushed and let out a choked sob. "Oh, God," she whispered, shaking. "And I…I…"

Casey paled. "Jesus, Kit. Did you…did you sleep with him?"

Casey withdrew slightly, looking at Kit carefully. Suddenly with that possibility open, he looked at Kit differently. She seemed more at risk. She didn't answer for a while, but during her silence Casey was staring at her, her tank top and guys boxers and, thinking about it, started to blush himself.

"No," she finally choked. "but I was going to."

It was then that Casey saw the little teal box sitting on her desk. He picked it up and walked to Kit's window and threw it out. It landed in the next door neighbor's flower bed, the box opening on the way down and sending little foil packets raining down among the peonies. He stood, leaning against the wall and stared at Kit as she began to talk.

"I can't believe he did this to me. He…I never touched you. Never. And he…and Hayden." Her face went hard and she narrowed her eyes in determination. "I'll show him. Toy? Bastard. Fine, then. I'll make it true. I'll make it true."

She stood up and looked around, wildly, tears still running down her face, but no longer sobbing. She moved over to Casey and put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back against the wall. Their faces were inches apart. Casey leaned back as far as he could, his head bumping against the wall.

"Kit, what are you doing?" she whispered.

"Making it true," she whispered.

Casey blinked. He could feel her breath on his face and Kit's other hand touched his cheek.

"Kit, I think you're just trying to..um..forget, and it's not a very good idea-"

"Casey," she interrupted. "Shut up and kiss me." (Thank you Rene, for the perfect line!)

Kit stared at him for a split second and then kissed him. Casey's eyes widened and then he squeezed them shut. He felt heat all over, like when you put your hand in water so hot it feels cold for a moment. He felt the blood pounding in his head. In a dreamlike state, he put his arms around Kit's waist. Her hand was behind his head now, her fingers twined in his short hair, and her hair brushing against his face. But suddenly he was yanked back to reality when Kit broke away and backed up, shaking her head and looking terrified. He took an involuntary step after her, his feet moving of their own accord.

"Oh my God," Kit whispered in a shaky voice. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry, Casey. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Please…I'm so sorry."

She sat down on her bed and started to cry. Her eyes closed, but she forced them open again and made herself look at Casey. His face was flushed and his hair rumpled a little and she knew she looked the same. Guilty. He was looking at her with a mix of emotions. She gazed at him in remorse. His lips looked puffy now, kiss-bruised. She guessed he'd never kissed someone before.

"I'm sorry, Casey," she said tearfully. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to- I mean, I really. I'm sorry!" she wailed. "I'm sorry!"

Casey finally found the ability to move and he walked over to sit next to her. She leaned her head on his shoulder and cried. He awkwardly patted her on the back, still very uncomfortable and uneasy. After a while she started to look very tired. Casey pulled back her covers and helped her to lay down.

"Casey?"

"Yeah?" he replied hoarsely.

"I'm sorry you had to hear all that."

"It's okay."

"And Casey?"

"Thank you."

Casey smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. He fell asleep there, laying on top of the comforter with his head next to Kit's on the pillow. When Kit's parents came home they woke him up and drove him home after hearing what happened.


	18. showdown

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: See previous seventeen chapters.

Author's Note: Omigod, I am soooo sorry I haven't updated, but for one, I had no idea how to follow that up and then I had so much homework it really wasn't funny at all. I should have kept those chapters hidden and posted them intermittently so I could work on the next chapter at the same time. Besides, it's really hard to write this fic with a mother leaning over your shoulder going "What are you doing? What's that? Tell me about it. Scroll up and let me read. Honey, I don't like that, that's inappropriate. I don't like that part. That's nice sweetie but it's a little inappropriate. I don't like all this." IT DRIVES ME INSANE AND GIVES ME WRITERS BLOCK! Even now I'm in my room with the laptop pretending I'm practicing voice. Anyway. On with the fic. (P.S. Becky, I have a new thing you can call Boromir or Sean Bean: Bobobean. I read it somewhere. ANYWAY. On with the fic.)

--- --- --- (too lazy to type out all the asterisks.)

Monday, December 14, 1998

Casey leaned over to Kit, who was focussing unusually hard on Mr. Tate's lecture.

"Are you okay?" he whispered. Kit shook her head like she was waking up.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

Casey inclined his head nervously. "Well, I just thought, what with Rob… cheating on you and all-"

"Don't say it!" snapped Kit. "Just…don't say a single thing. Not a word."

Casey nodded and leaned back over to his seat and pulled out his copy of Frank Herbert's Dune (which I WILL read. Sometime.). He didn't see Delilah lean back in her seat after hearing the entire conversation. Casey glanced back at Kit worriedly. She really didn't look good. Her hair was pulled back in two braids and she was wearing a baby tee and baggy painters pants, but what really showed was the way her shoulders were slumped in defeat, the way her fingers weren't reaching for her sketchbook. Even worse was the look of misery on her face, like her heart was completely shattered and she could barely function.

--- --- ---

Nell glanced at her computer screen. Two new messages, both from Kit. No subject. She clicked on the first one and up popped another window that showed the email.

Rob cheated on me. Send chocolate.

Nell's jaw dropped. The next email spilled out the whole sordid story. As her eyes scanned the page, Nell's lips grew thinner and thinner and her jaw clenched more and more.

Rob was going to pay.

--- --- ---

Casey climbed the bleachers to where Kit was sitting eating her lunch. Or actually picking at her lunch and dropping peas down between the slats. 

"Kit?" he tried weakly, then realized the quiet noise he'd been hearing was Kit's little CD player with attached speaker playing Andrew Lloyd Webber music. Don't Cry For Me Argentina. (Translation: Imagine the whole scene to that song.) Not the best choice for cheering up music. Kit looked up.

"Oh, hi, Casey," she said softly.

Casey sat down next to her, trying to articulate words. It occurred to him that she could very easily blame him for the situation, and thanked providence that she hadn't. After all, their relationship had been perfect until he came along and aroused suspicion. But maybe it was true. His heart thudded at the thought, with terror and nervousness and a strange tickling feeling he couldn't identify. What if she had been considering him…_like that?_ Casey tried to imagine it, and he felt his stomach fly up into his throat like he was on a roller coaster. Not true. Couldn't be true. But, said his inner voice, it might be. Might be. He hoped not. But hoped so. That was the feeling. A little bubbling feeling of desire. But the terror beat it down, until the want was only a little part of his emotions, a battered, twisted emotion.

"Casey."

He looked up. Kit was studying her hands intently, like she didn't want to look at him. She looked back up and fixed her gaze on something in the distance.

"I wanted to thank you."

Casey bit his lip. "For what?"

Kit looked back down, like she was reluctant to say anything. "For…helping me. I…don't think I would have been able to…handle it if you weren't…there."

Was she going to say something else? It sounded like it. Her speech was halting, slow, like she wanted to say something different but replaced it with a similar word. Now she was looking at him like she wanted him to understand some secret message she couldn't say out loud. What? What? What?

"Thank you," she said quietly. She put down her lunch tray on the seat in front of her and looked up, out in the distance, down at her lap and finally at Casey. She scooted closer to him and repeated, "Thank you."

She slowly reached over and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers, then leaned over and lightly kissed his lips. 

"And I'm sorry I used you last night."

Casey felt so relieved. The unspoken communication had read correctly. Friends. Just friends. Nothing more.

It won't be easy,

You'll think it's strange.

When I try to explain how I feel.

That I still need your love

After all that I've done.

You won't believe me. 

All you will see is a girl you once knew…

--- --- ---

After school, that same day.

Kit walked down the halls of the school, empty. Empty. Her heart was wrenched in two. Stupid, stupid, stupid. After everything she'd done, she still never learned. Never use Casey, she berated herself. But she had. She'd used him before, and she'd done it again. That night she felt so guilty about, feeling that all he had been to her was someone to take out her emotions on. She barely remembered anything she'd done, just remembered swearing wildly and banging the phone on the desk. And of course, just her luck, the one thing she remembered with perfect clarity was her one slip. She would have been fine with just the temper tantrum. She knew Casey had trained himself to let anger and verbal abuse wash over him. Just swearing she knew he could handle. But then she got personal. She remembered that perfectly. He had been stoic, letting her yell, just standing back. But then she'd kissed him. Even thinking about how stupid that had been made her face flush. She should have known better. Even in that state, she should have known better. That despite her anger and temper, there should have been some little voice of reason that should have prevented her from taking away his defenses. She guessed he'd never kissed any girl before. Maybe on the lips, chastely, sweetly, like in middle school. But it was doubtful that he'd ever french kissed. Much less _been_ french kissed. And at lunch time she'd only exacerbated (English III vocabulary word.) the situation. Kissed him again! Idiot.

Rob. Rob, Rob, Rob. Where had it gone wrong? What had she done? She'd paid attention to him at her party. She had loved him. Loved him so much her heart hurt to remember it. She had been willing to give up everything for him. Anything. Everything. If Rob had asked her to marry him she would have said…well, she would have said "in five years", but it would have been a yes. A yes, yes, yes. Kit felt her eyes begin to sting with tears as she headed towards the parking lot. She walked past the unused busses and glanced up momentarily towards her car, at the other end of the parking lot. Casey was leaning against the passenger door. Apparently he'd missed the bus again. She started across the parking lot, but was waylaid when she heard a voice call her name from her left. Kit turned and spotted Delilah and two other cheerleaders walked quickly towards her. Kit stopped, exasperated.

"What do you want, Delilah?" she sighed.

Delilah smiled. "Kit, that's not being neighborly." 

Kit clenched her jaw and shut her eyes tightly. "Look," she snapped. "I've had a really bad day and I'm really not in the mood, okay?"

She opened her eyes and glared at the beautiful Delilah, who tilted her head.

"Kit," said Delilah. "I heard about your boyfriend. That must be hard for you. I guess he just woke up one morning and realized what he was doing. Really. What did you expect? But gosh, to cheat on you. He must have really been sick of you. How sad."

Kit started to shake with fury, almost imperceptibly.

"So how bad was it? Were you that close? Oh my, you didn't sleep with him, did you? You can't imagine anyone would want anything but sex from someone like you, would you?"

Suddenly before Delilah could say anything else, Kit punched her. Her fist flew back and slammed into Delilah's nose so fast the other girls didn't see it. One minute it looked like Kit was ready to wilt, the next Delilah was wailing with her hand over her nose as blood flowed from between her fingers and Kit was screaming at Delilah in a rage. Delilah's knees were bent as she tried in vain to stop the flow of blood, hiccuping and sobbing as the blood made a brighter, gaudier lipstick for her than any Estee Lauder product could. Kit whirled around and ran away to her car, tears blurring her vision to the point that she fell against a car, scraping her hands on the ground as she scrambled back up. She collapsed in Casey's arms, out of sight of Delilah and her cronies, her arms wrapped around his thin shoulders, sobbing hopelessly. Casey was shocked. Kit had never shown lack of violent tendencies towards the males of the school, but somehow to Casey it seemed worse that Kit had struck Delilah. Delilah, who Casey loved still. Casey wondered bleakly if Kit would ever be the same, if he would ever get back his carefree best friend who could endure far more than he. This Kit was a damaged, vulnerable person that Casey didn't know. It was like a total stranger. Which one was Kit? The strong, cynical outcast or this broken, weeping soul? Was everything he had befriended been a front for this sensitive, temperamental girl? 


	19. Uturns and unexpected songs

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: When I own the rights for this movie, you will never see a disclaimer on this page. Is this a disclaimer? Yes it is. What does that mean? That's right. I don't own it.

I am SO sorry. I have had schoolwork out the WAZOO. Has not been funny. And on top of that, my damn chemistry teacher is Satan, and I swear he is Saruman reincarnated or something, only eviler. Even HCl can't stop him for long. EEEEEVIIIIILL.....but it's finally up. Short, so sorry, but there. It is there. This chapter didn't end up the way I planned it. It sort of wrote itself. They were going to go bowling. Anyway, it's after midnight, so I'll just post this and work on Kindle My Heart. Block sucks.

--- --- ---

Nell crept around the side of the car, tiptoeing around the spare tire. She leaned back and hissed, waving for her co-conspirators to follow. Katie scurried over after her and knelt by the wheelbarrow. Alec followed, grinning broadly. The three musketeers as one picked up the wheelbarrow and dumped its contents into the bed of the truck. Then they moved to the second wheelbarrow, slowly picking it up. Nell and Alec held it steady, bracing it on the side of the truck bed as Katie fiddled with the passenger lock. The door swung open and they dumped the wheelbarrow into the cab. They set down the empty wheelbarrow. Nell leaned in and, using a trowel, grabbed a trowelful of the stuff in the front seat. They dumped that in a box and took another trowelful and dumped that in the other box. Sealing it up, Alec stole off with one box and returned after a few breathless minutes. They sped off on foot away from the truck as fast as they could.

--- --- ---

Herrington High, Ohio, Winter Dance

December 19, 1998

Kit walked into the gym, keeping her chin up high. Not much in the way of class for a dance, but it was her first dance in Ohio. The crepe streamers hung like swags from the lights on the ceiling. She missed the cafeteria in Wyoming. Shaking away the unbidden thought, she stepped out onto the dance floor. They weren't playing anything she really liked as far as musical selection. Backstreet Boys had never really held much interest with her. She found them to be a little too mainstream for her tastes. Even Boy George was better, in her opinion. On a whim, she hummed a few lines of "Chameleon," or whatever that song was called. As she set down her purse, she heard the song end and cheered along with the others, cheering for the end of the song, not for the talent of the artists. The DJ was announcing the winter ball court, so she shoved her way through the crowd to the stand. The DJ's helper was fumbling with the CD drawer and checking the playlist. No one could really hear anything.

"Hey!" she hollered at the college age guy. "Can I make a request?"

"Sure!" he hollered back. "I don't know what to play next anyway!"

Kit pointed at a CD she saw immediately. "David Bowie!" she shouted. "Golden Years!"

He nodded and took out the CD. Kit grinned and gave him a thumbs up and moved back through the throng.

(Communicating with DJs is an art. "MELISSA ETHERIDGE!" "WHAT?" "MELISSA ETHERIDGE!" "WHAT????" "COME ON OVER! MELISSA ETHERIDGE!" "I'M RIGHT HERE!"

"NO, YOU FOOL, THE SONG!")

A few minutes later, once the horror of _Quit Playing Games With My Heart_ had ended, Kit heard the opening strains of _Golden Years_ filtered out through the speakers. After a half a minute she realized two things. One. Someone was watching her. Two. She was one of the only people actually dancing to this song. Kit turned around and glanced over at the other side of the room. Standing in the doorway was Casey in a blue button-down shirt and khakis. Giving up completely on dancing, she strode over to the other side of the room and grabbed Casey's arm.

"Let's get out of here," she muttered, pulling him out the door.

--- --- ---

Kit whooped and pressed the button on the console of her convertible.

"Isn't this great?" she yelled as the top slid back. She yanked the chopstick that was holding her hair in place from her curly brown hair and flung it up in the air. Casey grinned and loosened the knot on his tie.

"I was going to ask Delilah to dance-" he began, but Kit cut him off.

"Casey, you can't go through life like you-" she stopped. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Well...hell."

Kit made a reckless U-turn and started speeding back to the school.

--- --- ---

"There you go, Casey. Your very own Aphrodite. Go ask her to dance."

Casey made his way slowly towards Delilah, who was standing adjacent to one of the little columns for drinks to sit on. She was laughing at something Stan was saying. She was beautiful.

"Delilah," Casey heard himself saying. She turned to look at him expectantly.

"Yes? What do you want, Casey?"

"I wondered...if you might want to dance with me," said Casey shyly. Delilah stared at him in disbelief as his cheeks reddened furiously.

"Of course she would!" blurted out Stan hastily, and placed Delilah's hand on Casey's shoulder. "Dance with him, Delilah," he said pointedly. (I love Stan.) Delilah stared at him now, shock and horror gleaming in her eyes. But Casey of course did not notice this. He somehow managed to get to the dance floor, feeling unbelievably grand with this goddess on his arm. Stan watched the two go with a shrug. Then he glanced around with a slightly resigned sigh. Catching sight of Kit in the doorway, he paused. She was yawning. Slowly she pushed a lock of her thick hair out of her eyes. She was wearing a black dress with red trim. He hadn't noticed before. It looked good. He walked over to her slowly.

"Hey, Kit," he said casually. She looked up at him with half-interest.

"Hey."

"So..."he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "It looks like your pal Casey stole my girlfriend from me," he joked. Kit raised an eyebrow.

"So? He has a right."

Stan rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "I guess I'll have to fight him for her, huh?"

Kit shook her head, a tiny smile creeping across her lips. "Nah. You'll have to fight me. Casey'll be too busy staring at Wonder Woman."

Stan held up his hands. "Fight you?" he laughed. "No way, I surrender. But..."

Kit looked at him expectantly.

"I might just have to dance with you instead."

Kit slowly grinned. "Really?"

"Yeah. Awful punishment, isn't it?"

"Think you can keep up?"

"I think I can manage."

Stan put his arms around Kit's slender waist and she put her arms around the back of his neck. Some soft, sentimental music filtered out of the speakers as they swayed gently across the floor. As the song progressed the two leaned closer, until finally they were dancing cheek to cheek. Stan reminded Kit a little of Rob, only a bit sweeter. He felt almost the same. He was muscled like Rob, and Kit had almost forgotten how it felt to have strong arms encircling her waist, and to be pressed against a muscular chest. So long had she been accustomed to Casey's thin frame, whenever she had touched him, that she forgot what it was like. And Stan was nice. Sweet, well-meaning and nice.

--- --- ---

Casey was delirious with happiness.


	20. Cheating

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: Own Kit, Gracie, Rob, Alec, Hayden, Nell, Katie and Mr. & Mrs. O'Connell.

Author's Note: Feeling all...stifled. Blocked. School imminent. Shit. Kit's thoughts towards school is only coincidentally the same as author's. This chapter is a very sad one. It has been in the works since chapter seven or eight. There's a clue in chapter eight. This has no bearing on my personal life at all. It has been planned since whenever I posted those chapters.

************************************************************************************************************

January 4, 1998. Two days before school begins again.

Casey flopped down on his bed and shoved a pillow behind his head. He reached up over his head to the shelf over his bed and swatted at his CD player. It started without a fuss, playing Smashing Pumpkins Disarm. (Salutes Plato's Tragedy) He flipped open his book, Star Wars Heir to the Empire, by 

Timothy Zahn. Trying to enjoy his time alone in the house. A couple hours later he heard the front door slam shut. He turned off the music quickly and sat up straight. The heavy tread of his father, walking up the stairs. A lighter tread. Casey froze. He could hear a woman laughing, and his father's deep laughter joined in. Then the door to his parents room slammed. He heard some bumping noises. Standing up quietly, he crept to his door and opened it cautiously. Looking down the hall, he could see that the door to his parents room had bounced back open and was open a crack. He tiptoed down the hall and peered into the room. His father was there, with another woman. A woman that was definitely not his mother. She had long blond hair and a slim, lithe figure. His father was kissing her. Taking off her blouse. Laying her down on the bed. Casey jumped back. He slammed back against the wall with a thud, and turned on his heel and fled. He ran into his room and slammed the door, locking it. He dove back onto his bed and opened his book again.

"Shit," his father growled from down the hall. "Vicky, I'll be right back. I think my damn kid's home."

Casey pressed his head against the wall furiously, desperately trying to disappear.

"Okay, Frank. I'll be right here," she replied in a low voice. Casey heard his father stop outside his door and knock on it carefully.

"Casey? Are you in there?"

"Yeah," choked Casey. "You're home early."

"So are you. I thought you had...uh...photography club today."

"The darkroom got messed up. I thought I heard voices."

"Oh-" his father sounded strangled. "That was the TV."

"Oh."

His father walked back to his room and Casey heard muffled noises, and then the sound of high heels clicking down the stairs. He bit down on his lower lip so hard he tasted the tang of blood.

--- --- ---

Rob woke up on a regular day. He was grounded. His mother knew exactly what he had done and grounded him for a month. He left the house to go drive out to the far fields. Letting the screen door smack shut behind him, he strode out into the yard to his old, rusty truck. As he got closer he could see there was something wrong. Something lumpy was covering the bed of the truck and all in the cab. He started to jog over, and opened the cab door. His entire truck was filled up with horse manure. He stared in horror for a few seconds and then the pieces fell into place.

"GOD-DAMN IT!!!"

Fifty feet away, Alec, Nell and Katie high fived and whooped jubilantly.

--- --- ---

Casey stood in the hall at school, frozen. It was the middle of fourth period. The bathroom pass hung limply from his hand as he stared at the dilapidated phone bank. Two phone booths, with graffiti all over them. Call his mother and tell her? Don't call his mother, and let her find out on her own. Then it would all go back to normal. But had it ever been normal? Was there a normal? But call his mother and tell her? Then everything would fall apart. His parents would split up, and he might have to move. A year ago, moving would have been possibly welcome, leaving Delilah would have been the only wrench. Now he had two friends. Gracie and Kit. And he still didn't want to leave Delilah. And what would this do to his mother? Casey suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of hatred towards his father. He hated him. Hated him. How could he do this to his mother? They'd taken vows! They'd promised to love each other forever and stay faithful! But look at them now! There was barely any love there, if what he'd seen was true. He picked up the phone and dialed.

"Is Mrs. Conner there? This is her son. Yes, it's urgent."

Casey's throat choked up.

"Mom? It's me, Casey. No, I'm fine. I'm in school. I got a pass. I need to tell you something."

Casey's throat closed as he delivered the terrible news to his mother.

"Her name is Vicky. She's tall, and blonde, and skinny."

Patricia Conner was silent, but then finally Casey heard a tiny click as his mother hung up on him.

--- --- ---

"Casey? Casey? _Casey?_"

Casey lifted his head from his arms with a jerk and blinked owlishly up at Delilah. "Sorry, Delilah. I'm just...a little out of it."

The editor-in-chief folded her arms and looked down at Casey. The rest of the newspaper staff tittered nervously. Delilah waited a second more, then grabbed Casey's forearm and pulled him up.

"Come on," she snapped, dragging him out the door. "If one of my staff is having a problem, they need to talk to me."

Casey blankly followed her outside the classroom, where she pushed him against the wall and stood in front of him with her arms folded.

"Well?" she snapped. "Why aren't you paying attention? What's wrong with you?"

Casey sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, Delilah."

"Damn right you are. Now what's going on?"

He looked up at her warily, searching for a trap. She seemed ready to listen. This was Delilah. Delilah, the most beautiful creature in the world to him. Her brown eyes with their long lashes were looking straight at him. Suddenly he knew what it felt like to be a deer staring down a semi. He licked his dry lips apprehensively. 

"Delilah, it's nothing."

"No, it's not. Why don't you tell me?"

"No, really. It's just...I caught my father cheating on my mother, and I'm worried."

Delilah nodded thoughtfully. "Are they getting divorced?" she asked flatly.

"I don't know."

"Why are you worried?"

"I'm worried I might not have both parents any more."

"Having one parent...you would be lucky. I have no father and an emotionally absent mother, so consider yourself lucky. I think you should tell your little friend Kit."

"What makes you think I haven't already?"

"If you had, you wouldn't need my advice."

She patted his shoulder sympathetically and returned to her newspaper room, leaving Casey standing, catatonic, in the hallway.

--- --- ---

What on earth possessed me to make Delilah a sympathetic character in here?

My sanity...going...going...gone...

Thanks to my faithful reviewers: Erendil, Kay/WillowVilya, Tenchi-Sama, Zeech (my wonderful sister), and Kadama (another wonderful sister!). Thank you all so much. Loves loves. If you want to see your name here, review my story more!!!! ^^


	21. Lies and hurt

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: You know the drill.

--- --- ---

Casey curled up on his bed and stared at his locked door. It was very late at night, he looked at the clock and saw it was one a.m. His mother was still not home. Terror gripped his heart as he counted the minutes. Suddenly he heard the door slamming and high heels clipping up the stairs with a frenzied beat. 

"Frank!" he heard his mother cry angrily, then he heard the squeal of the hinges as his mother threw open the bedroom door, then a bang as she slammed it behind her. Angry voices floated through the drywall, and Casey heard the unmistakable sound of swearing. He dove under the covers, pulling the comforter over his head. He brought his knees up to his chest, trying to be as small as he possibly could. After what seemed like an eternity of yelling, he heard the door open again and his mother stomp out into the hallway, dragging something with her.

"I'm leaving, Frank!" she hollered.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I'm leaving you! Work out your fucking sex life on your own, this is over!"

"Fuck you, Patricia!"

"Fuck yourself!"

Casey felt himself shaking in terror, wishing he could make his voice work to call his mother back. But the front door closed with a rattling slam, and he heard his father running back up the stairs. He pounded on Casey's door, making the seventeen year-old jump.

"Are you happy, Casey?" he roared. "Are you happy with what you've done?"

--- --- ---

The next day at school, Casey was lifeless. His mother had not returned in the morning, and his father had stayed in his room while Casey fixed his own lunch and walked to the bus stop. Throughout the day he didn't speak to ask or answer a question once, and avoided Kit and Gracie studiously. Keeping track of how to stay away from them was the only thing he concentrated on all day. In the locker room, he was shoved into the lockers, but didn't move, like a rag doll. He didn't concentrate on a single insult, but ignored the world. After school he ran out of the building and sat down on the bus directly behind the driver. When he got home he found his father in the living room, reading Sports Illustrated. Only when Casey heard the ice clinking did he see the glass of scotch on the end table.

"Dad?" said Casey tentatively. "I'm home."

His father nodded. "Casey, look," he said tersely. "I'm sorry for what I said last night."

__

You're sorry? asked the old Casey. _That's a first._

"It's okay," said Casey, as if he were talking to a stranger.

"You see, Casey," said Frank Conner, lowering his magazine and leaning forward. "You might be a little young to understand about all of this, but as for my unfaithfulness, well, it's a different thing than you might think."

"I know exactly what you did, Dad."

"Casey, it meant nothing!"

"I know what you did, Dad. You cheated on my mother, you cheated on her, and you took vows!" cried Casey through gritted teeth.

"I don't expect you to understand that your mother-"

"Shut up," snapped Casey. "Shut up."

He turned on his heel and fled up the stairs.

--- --- ---

"Casey?"

Casey opened his eyes slowly. He rubbed at them, feeling the dried tears flake off.

"Casey?"

Casey sat up and threw off his blanket.

"Mom?"

"Can I come in?"

"Sure," said Casey blankly, rubbing his eyes again and crossing the room to unlock the door.

"How are you, sweetie?" she asked, hugging him close. Casey blinked.

"I'm okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You?"

His mother crossed to the other side of the room and sat down on his bed.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, sweetie. Your father and I...are getting a divorce."

"You are?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry."

"That was...umm...quick."

("Well, that's the wonder of fiction! You can bend the judicial system!" "Really?" "Yes, sweetie." "Wow.")

"I've been thinking about it for a while. I didn't tell him, but I had already started to file for divorce. I was going to leave him and go live in Kentucky with my sister."

Casey was stunned. His heart fell to his shoes as he stared at his mother in shock.

--- --- ---

To be continued...

Will Casey tell Kit? Will Casey have to move away!? Will he never see his true love again? (But who is his true love...?) You'll have to wait...until I can sneak the computer again! (Probably tonight after I see Les Misérables...)

Look soon for:

a)update on Kindle My Heart

b)Two new Arwen/Aragorn stories 

c)New fic involving Legolas 

d)New romance fic with an unusual love interest...one I've not seen before. 

And lastly 

e) The next chapter in this fic.

By the way...sitting on my computer is the last scene from this fic. It is written, and it is a plot twist. But it won't come about for another twenty chapters or so.


	22. Stolen moments of pain

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: If you don't know by now, you really need to check a few things.

Rating: This hasn't changed...

Disclaimer: That goes for this too.

A/N: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. School sucks, want to bomb the damn place. Hate it more than Casey hates school. Want to herd all the little Delilah's at my school into a little pen and give them little necklaces loaded with napalm. Want to give all the Gabe's at my school brief's loaded with napalm. Want to give some of my teachers who relentlessly beat down our spirits little presents.

--- --- ---

Casey was sitting on his bed at one a.m. the night after his mother had told him he might have to move to Kentucky. His mother was sleeping in a hotel room downtown. His father was asleep, aided in his quest for total unconsciousness by the wonder of sleeping pills. Oddly, the one thing he was terrified of about leaving was not that he would leave Delilah, but Kit.

He shook his head furiously. And Kit didn't even know! He had to tell her! How would it be possible for him to just leave her without any warning! She was his best friend. He leaped off his bed quickly and grabbed his jacket. He ran down the stairs and out the front door, shrugging the jacket on as he ran. He pulled his bicycle out from the side of the garage and jumped on. By the time he had biked the mile to Kit's house, his legs felt like jelly. He managed to shove the bike into the bushes with one rush of energy. Quickly he moved to the front welcome mat and took out the spare key. Letting himself into the garage, he walked up the small spiral stairs that led to Kit's room and knocked lightly on the door. Knocked again. Kept up a steady beat on her door with his knuckles. Five minutes later the door swung open and Casey was greeted with the welcome sight of a very tired and unwelcoming Kit squinting into the stairwell at him. Only on earpiece of her glasses was actually on her ear. She fixed that.

"Casey?" she mumbled, fiddling with the straps on her tank top. "What are you doing?"

"My dad cheated on my mom and they're getting a divorce. I might have to move away," he blurted out, and then promptly burst into tears.

--- --- ---

"It made me feel like shit for being related to him," muttered Casey, twisting the comforter between his fingers. Kit had immediately seated him on her bed and wrapped the comforter around his shoulders. (THIS IS WINTER!) He had cried until all tears had left his body, and felt better for it. He could feel the warmth of Kit's arms wrapped around him even through the comforter. She smoothed the hair back from his temple gently.

"It hurts, I'm sure," she said quietly. Casey sniffed.

"You're so lucky. Your parents love each other. Your dad would never-"

Kit rubbed her hand over his back soothingly, tracing small circles with the palm of her hand. Casey covered his face with his hands as he burst into tears again. Shame weighed down his heart. Crying? Crying? He hadn't cried in so long, not like this. Not in front of Kit. Or any other girl. He tried to shut out the idea of divorce by changing the subject.

"Kit?" he asked in a muffled voice. "Do you think I'm a wuss?"

He felt her hair shake against his cheek as she shook her head. "No, of course not!" she cried softly. "Why would you think that?"

He sniffed. "Because I'm crying. I shouldn't cry. Everyone knows guys aren't supposed to cry."

He heard her sharp intake of breath as he guessed she was trying to come up with a good answer to that.

"Casey, I don't think you lack in any sort of courage, or...or testosterone. You're not a wuss. I think it's wonderful that you can admit you have feelings, and that you let them out."

The kind words pierced his heart and he shuddered with another wave of sobs. "I don't want to move, I don't want my parents to get a divorce, I don't want any of this to happen! It's not fair!"

--- --- ---

From the moment Kit had opened the door to see Casey standing there, she knew that something terrible had happened. But she expected him to tell her calmly, with his usual pithy remarks about how fucked up his life was. But he burst into tears. Crying. Sobbing. Like he was doing now, sobbing against her shoulder.

"Shh...shh...it'll be all right," she whispered, halfway torn between comforting Casey and being petrified that her parents would wake up or his father would wake up and find him gone. She sighed, looking out her window at the frosty cold night, devoid of snow as of two weeks ago.

--- --- ---

"I think I can go home now," whispered Casey.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

Casey stood up and put Kit's comforter back down on her bed, then looked back at his best friend. She wasn't looking at him, she was looking out the window. Kit really was pretty, he thought to himself. Her eyes were a soft understated green, almost unnoticeable unless in a certain light, like now. Her eyes looked dark green, like the green of magnolia leaves. He wondered what he would do if he could never see her again. If he had to move away.

"Kit?" he asked quietly. She looked back at him sharply. (Stop laughing, Becky.)

"Yes? Sorry?"

"I...think you'd like your spare key back," he said quickly. Kit took it from his outstretched hand and put it in her pocket.

"Thanks. I'll let you out?"

"Yeah. Thank for letting me come."

"Any time, Casey," she said, cupping his chin in her hand. "I mean that."

He nodded. "You're my best friend, Kit."

She hugged him tightly. "You're mine too."

--- --- ---

Grrrrrrr.................must kill school.

Grrrrrrr.................make me feel better.

Help me make 80 reviews.

AAHH! You have no idea how much getting 70 reviews means to me! It means I don't suck! Now all I have to do is have a hit LotR fic and be set in the halls of LotR fame, like Miss Cam, and shirebound, and Lady Alyssa. *bounces up and down* Reviews love me and I love reviews!!! Oh, and those promised fics are being worked on as we speak! Or...not...speak. But anyway. Going to go work on Kindle My Heart. Have to go cause heartbreak. ^^

Help me make 80 reviews.

Come on. You know you want to click it.

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Our review button.


	23. Happy Valentine's Day from my defective ...

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Ratings and Disclaimers: Blah blah blah.

--- --- --

__

it's not just for fairy tales

it's for real life

when two people are made for each other

when they are best friends

when from the beginning

they were two hearts of the same spirit

looking for each other

in the big wide world

--- --- ---

February 14, 1999. The day of LOVE.

Delilah was on fire.

Casey watched her as she walked down the halls wearing a fiery red blouse with long, flowing sleeves and some sort of asymmetrical skirt with fringe. Her hair was pulled back with little fake red flowers. She looked like a giant flame.

"What a little hussy," said Kit, standing next to Casey. Kit, on the other end of the spectrum, was in black. Black jeans, black lacy blouse and even a black veil over her face, with blood-red lipstick on. Black sunglass clip-ons, as well. 

"She looks like a big flame," whispered Casey in awe.

"Yeah," said Kit sarcastically. "A big blowtorch."

"Hey, Delilah!" called Casey, and waved. "Happy Valentine's Day!"

Kit rolled her eyes in disgust.

"Happy Valentine's Day to you too, Casey!" replied Delilah, smiling coyly over her shoulder. Kit sighed.

"She's just toying with you, Casey."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes, or I'll kiss you on the cheek with all this wonderful lipstick on."

"Yes."

--- --- ---

Stan was making out with Delilah in the janitors closet. He knew he really should be in World Civics, but somehow he felt that this was more important. Yes, definitely more important.

--- --- ---

"Caaaaaaasey."

"Shut up, Kit."

"Caaaaaaasey, where do you suppose all of Delilah's lipstick went?"

"I don't know."

"Oh look, there's Stan. Maybe he can help us."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Wow." Kit sounded amazed. "He looks like...well....like he....he looks good with lipstick on."

--- --- ---

I'm afraid that's all for now....I really wasn't inspired, but later I will go back and write a longer version of Valentine's Day. I have a giant Spanish project due Tuesday, and need to get moving on it. Adieu!

BTW, am Flute in Midsummer Night's dream and Hermia's understudy.


	24. Baby, I loves the toilet you sit on

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: She who is lazy and will start the fic now.

Enter another plot twist. This is once again, for all you Zeke fans. *chokes* Really, I hope you all know that I get no pleasure out of writing Zeke. He's so smooth it makes me want to go eat gravel. 

--- --- --- 

"Casey?" asked Kit in concern, reaching over to touch his shoulder. It had been a month since his mother had left, and Kit was worrying. He shrugged her hand off and shook his head. Kit leaned back in her chair and chewed on the end of her pencil. Casey sat still for a few more moments, then turned halfway in his seat and smiled slightly at her.

"800 people die each year chewing on pens," he said quietly, trying not to attract the attention of Mr. Tate. Kit grinned and put the pen down, leaning forward.

"So what's the deal?" she asked. "Come on, you've been quiet since you hopped off the bus! What is it?"

Casey shrugged. "Nothing. I'm just tired, that's all. Really."

Kit sighed. "If you say so."

--- --- ---

Kit walked out to her car to get her lunch the moment the bell rang. Unnecessary time in the school building, she had decided, was bad for her health. As she wove in and out of the lines of cars, she was met by a familiar persona nona grata in the popular crowd.

"Zeke?" she asked, not bothering to disdain His Druggie Highness. This definitely showed that Kit was worried, because on a normal occasion, she would seize any chance she got to tear down his drug dealer habit. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I don't know," he said lazily, putting out an arm to block her path. "I figured I'd like to talk with you."

Kit folded her arms. "About what?"

"I hear you're single now."

Taken aback, Kit wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Everything."

The trim brunette waved a careless hand. "I'm waiting for a point, Zeke."

"Nothing," he said smoothly, touching her shoulder. "Just the way you walk. The way your steps seem to eat up the earth."

Kit brushed his hand off impatiently. "That would be my Jurassic Park walk. Now come on, Zeke, what do you want to talk to me about?"

"I like you, Kit." The taller man pulled himself up on the hood of someone's car. "I admit it would be a bit strange of me to like you and perhaps date you, since you're a year younger than me, but I'm willing to adjust."

"I thought guys like you liked girls who fit three qualities: young, big boobs, and brains the size of a roasted tic-tac. I only have the first one."

Zeke ran his fingers through his short black hair carelessly. "You underestimate me, Kit."

"No, I think you've got that backwards."

"Has anyone ever told you that you are a really sexy girl?"

"That's a new one, actually." Kit tapped her foot on the asphalt.

"You certainly are. I mean, look at you. Tall, lean. You walk like you own the world, Kit. That's sexy." He said this as if he were reading facts about Nigeria, as though this was an undisputed thing.

Kit sighed and shook her head. "I am tall. Skinny. No hips. No breasts to speak of."

"That's a B-cup."

"How do you know?"

"I've picked the locks on the girls' lockers."

__

"Son of a bitch!"

"Delilah takes Xanax and Dexatrim," said Zeke, not missing a beat. It threw Kit off.

"She does?" asked Kit in an awed tone. "At the same time? What if she OD's?"

"It would serve her right, selfish bitch. Can I ask you something?"

Kit felt that the last five minutes had been something of a battle of wits. Neither of them had moved very much, but simply shot things back and forth at each other. "Go ahead." _I dare you._

"Are you in love with Casey?"

The idea had never really occurred to Kit. "Uh...I don't think so," she replied slowly, while trying to process this question. Zeke seemed to realize that he had phrased this question wrong.

"I mean, are you either dating him, planning to date him, or sleeping with him?" amended the school Lothario.

"No, Lothario," snapped Kit. "I am not screwing my best friend, planning to screw my best friend or otherwise. And I think you suck for suggesting it."

"Naw," replied Zeke with a self-satisfied smirk that made Kit realize she should have phrased her response better. "I blow."

"You are a pig."

"But I have another question!" he cried as she started to walk away. Zeke reached out and grabbed her upper arm and pulled her back. She glared at him furiously, her green eyes sparking like firecrackers. In a moment she would explode, and when Kit exploded, knees tended to move into groin areas.

"What?" she spat. "What could you possibly say to me?"

"Will you go out with me?"

"Fuck off."

"Is that a yes?"

"No, Zeke," replied Kit, shaking her arm free. "That is not a yes. That is a no. A word spelled in the same way as the chemical compound nitrous oxide. N. O. No, as in not yes. No, as in 'I would rather date Mr, Tate." She turned on her heel and stalked away as fast as she could.

"Can I hold you to that statement about Mr. Tate?" he yelled after her.

"NO!"

"I love the way you walk!"

"I love the way my knee will hit your balls if you don't shut up and leave me alone!"

--- --- ---

Ew. Must go bleach hand. Ew.

UPDATED! Aren't we all happy? I sure am. Whew!


	25. On Trial and Paid Attendance

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: She who has had writers block over break. DAMN! 

A/N: I have absolutely no idea how a custody battle goes, so I'm just taking a shot at it. Tell me if I mess anything major up. *sigh*

--- --- ---

Casey didn't like courtrooms. He didn't like this one in particular, because he

a) had to wear a suit

b) was freezing

and most importantly

c) was the subject of a custody battle between his parents.

His father's argument was that "Casey's my boy. He's my man. I am his father, and he needs to have a strong male role model. Casey's not been very able to defend himself or stand up for himself-"

__

Oh, thanks a lot Dad.

"And I feel if he were around me I could help him through these problems. Patricia would just tell him like always, 'Just ignore it. Let it wash over him like he's a duck.' My son's not a duck."

__

Obviously.

"He's a man. I've been pushing him to join a sports team here, and he's really going to be able to make it. He has friends here. See them over in the front row?"

__

Kit, Gracie and a few guys Dad paid in front of the courtroom to come sit and act friendly and supportive.

"They care about him. See, he's happy here. You can't let him move to...Kentucky. He'd be so isolated."

(Sorry, Kay.) _Like I'm not already._

Casey shot a nervous glance at the front row and at his two real friends. Gracie's hair was pixie short and blond, a new development. Before it had been a sweet shoulder length. He didn't think the judge liked it very much. Kit looked extremely clean-cut. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing a polo shirt and straight legged jeans. Very country club. Casey barely noticed when his father stopped speaking. Frankly, he didn't really care which way he went. His father and Kit on the one hand, or his mother and total isolation. His mother loved him, but she was extremely strict. His father wanted him to be a jock, and cheated on his marriage. But Kit and Gracie lived in Herrington. 

"Patricia Conner?" called the judge. "Make your plea."

"I love my son, but I'm worried about his future. I think he is living dangerously here. The boys at his school are cruel, and his only friends are those two girls in the front row. My ex-husband-" Insert death glare towards Dad here. "- is a bad role model for him. He wants to force him into things he doesn't want to do. He wants him to hit the boys at school, and he wants him to join a sports team. I think Casey needs to come with me and get some counseling when he moves to Kentucky."

__

Counseling? Casey could see Kit stifle a laugh into her hand, turning it into a cough.

"Thank you, Mrs. Conner. Casey, could you come up to the stand? I'm going to need a written statement from you."

Casey jumped. "What?"

"Yes, come up here."

When Casey came up to the stand, he turned to the judge and whispered quickly, "Your Honor, the person I really depend on in this scenario is my best friend. The, um, one in the polo shirt. Katherine O'Connell. She knows everything that's been going on, probably better than me. I think you should ask her some questions."

"Yes," said the judge, peering over his half-moon glasses at some papers. "Your father said in his statement that she is a bad influence on you."

Casey gasped and shot a look of barely repressed fury towards his father, then looked back at the judge. "Listen, he has no idea what he's talking about. You can see me down there. I don't talk. I'm quiet. I'm not popular. I will never be popular. Kit is the first friend I've had in three years."

"Are you sure," said the judge imperiously, "That you are not so grateful to Miss O'Connell for befriending you that you are willing to look past all her flaws and misguidance?"

"I'm sure. Please, your Honor, I have to stay here. I love my mother, but I would have to start all over again."

The judge nodded slowly. "I see. You may sit down."

--- --- ---

As they were leaving the courtroom, Casey caught up to Kit and Gracie and they made supportive contact, patting his shoulder, ruffling his hair, kissing his cheek.

"Are you okay, Case?" asked Gracie, absently fiddling with a tiny lock of hair by her ear. "He looked pretty intense up there."

"Yeah," replied Casey. "Let's get out of here."

"Ice cream?" asked Kit, keeping her arm around Casey's shoulders like a brace to hold him up. Casey smiled and stepped ahead of his warring parents.

"Sounds great."

--- --- ---

Kit swung the bathroom stall door open in the ice cream parlor and stepped up to the sink. She pumped soap into her hands and stuck them under the faucet, scrubbing at each finger to avoid going out there so quickly. Finally she couldn't dilly-dally any longer, and started out the door. The second she opened the door she found an unwelcome familiar figure waiting for her. 

"Zeke, please leave me alone."

Zeke smiled lazily and folded his arms over his chests. "Kit, that's not nice," he said with a tilt of his head. "I usually hang out here. I think it's _you_ who needs to leave _me_ alone."

Kit groaned and shook her head emphatically. "No, Zeke. You need to leave me alone. I am far too stressed to put up with you. So please, Zeke. No offense, but fuck you."

"Your place or mine?"

"I hate you."

--- --- ---

and I hate school, the end. Will write much more in eleven days


	26. Down the Tubes

Title: Another Brick in the Wall

Author: Lea of Mirkwood

Disclaimer: No change.

I RETURN! But block has hit, and block has hit hard, so this chapter isn't as original as it could be.

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Time had passed. Casey was slowly growing accustomed to not having his mother around. There was a slow, awkward period when he didn't know what was going on, or what he was going to do without his practical, caring, overprotective mother around. But the feeling passed somewhat. There were still mornings when he instinctively glanced out the back window to the seat in the back yard where Mrs. Conner drank her coffee, but as spring break came and went, he became too distracted by impending graduation to think about it. One thing he wasn't used to was the occasional appearance of Vicky. Her blond effervescence was repulsive to him. She tried to be nice and understanding, but it was pointless to him. The sounds emanating from his father's room at night were enough to make him wish for her to die. The only thing he worried about was his grades, his graduation, and the location of the senior trip. It still hadn't been announced, but Mr. Tate promised that he would tell them on the first day back from Spring Break. He had been in touch with Kit over the break, many times, and Gracie as well. He had grown much closer to Gracie over that time, since Kit had spent most of the week off in Wyoming. She came back Sunday with an even tan, calluses on her hands and a bruise in the crook between her arm and shoulder from practicing with the Winchester. However glad he was to see her, Casey still had a dark feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Monday, he thought uneasily, would not be a good day.

--- --- ---

The bus ride was uneventful. He sat near the front for his own personal safety and emotional security. A few bumps in the ride, literally, didn't deter him from his determination. No matter what he thought today would be like, he was going to face it head on. He'd learned from past experience that when his wonderful and kind classmates had a break from school, they came back kicking. Kicking hard, and that kicking generally involved a long metal object called a flagpole. Casey sighed and looked down at his camera. Good luck, camera. I hope you and me make it back in one workable piece.

"Aw, _fu-uck_!" came a long, drawn out protest from the back of the bus. "It's the _school_!"

Casey's head turned slightly, the motion completely involuntary, and looked out the window. Yes. That was the school. Tall, yellow, with dead grass out front and his best friend the flagpole. As the bus slowly ground to a halt in the loop by the front lawn, Casey gathered his things together and made it off the steps third or fourth in line. He glanced around slightly nervously, and when his eyes were turned the other way something hard slammed into his nose and he fell backwards, his backside slamming into the concrete sidewalk with a jarring thud.

"Sorry, my fault," muttered Casey, waving a hand at his attacker. A hint of sarcasm was present in his mostly passive statement, but the undertone was completely lost on whoever had decided his face would be a perfect place for their elbow to go.

"Crash and burn, Casey," said Stokely with her usual taste for dry wit. Lately that had become her favorite phrase, and she had been saying it for weeks. Casey smiled ruefully and started to pick himself up off the floor, to the sound of a car crash from across the street.

"Casey!" cried a voice from behind him. Pulling himself fully upright, he turned to look in the direction of the call. Kit was running towards him at full tilt, the sun making her lime green tank glow. Her hair was plaited tightly into two braids, and they bounced on her shoulders as she ran.

"Hey, Kit!" he replied, lifting a hand in greeting. She caught up to him and threw her arm around his neck, making both of them stagger.

"How was spring break?" she asked breathlessly, adjusting the strap of her messenger bag over her tanned shoulder. Casey shrugged.

"Fine, I guess. Nothing special."

"Cool," remarked Kit. She patted his shoulder absently. "Well, I have to go ask my guidance counselor a question about my GPA, so...see you in Tate's?"

"Yeah," said Casey listlessly. "See you, I guess."

Casey watched as his best friend jogged up the steps to the school, pausing only once to wave to him. The second the doors closed behind her Casey felt a strong grip around his thin bicep.

"Good morning, Casey!"

Casey turned around to see Gabe's smiling face.

"Ah, shit."

__

Why did I come to school today?

"NO, NOT THE POLE!"

--- --- ---

Mr. Tate walked unsteadily to the front of the classroom and adjusted his glasses, in the end smudging the lenses worse than they would have been had he left them alone. He took a deep gulp from the opaque mug on his desk and looked at his senior history class.

"Class, I have unhappy news to give you," he said, leaning back slightly and groaning. "At the staff meeting last night, the verdict on out senior trip was given. I'm sorry kids, but New York is out of the picture."

Stokely groaned and let her head fall down into her hands. That was the last hope for fun in her entire high school career. Kerplunk. Down the tubes.

--- --- ---

There ya go, a chapter.


	27. Farewell

I've decided to end this story. It's stuck with me for over a year now, and has helped me through a lot with this little fantasy. But it's time for me to move on. I was going to write everything, about the aliens and Delilah and Casey and everyone's senior wills, but there's no point. Everything comes down to this, and the brief epilogue I'm posting next. This is the ending of this fic that I've had written since almost the very beginning. This isn't a cheap cop-out. This is it. This is what happens with Kit and Casey.

It takes place after graduation, near the end of July.

--- --- ---

Casey stood in front of Kit and looked at her bags, all neatly packed away and ready to go. One trunk, a duffel and a box. Somehow that seemed horrible to him. It didn't seem right that all of Kit could fit into so little a place. Silence hung between them, almost tangible. Casey blinked back bitter tears.

"So...so...this is it?" his voice cracked with emotion. "After everything? You're just going to leave?"

Kit nodded. "I'm going off to college, Casey."

Casey wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. "Where?"

Kit shrugged. "I can't tell you."

"Why? Why can't you?" cried Casey desperately. "It's not fair! After everything you've done for me, how can you just stand there and tell me I'll never see you again? That you won't even tell me where you're going? And you...don't you care at all?"

He made a move like he was going to reach for her, but stopped and wiped off his tears again. Kit cast her eyes down.

"If fate says that we should meet again, then we will," she said, for lack of a better explanation. 

"But I-" began Casey_. I love you, he finished mentally__. I love you. I've been in love with you for so long I didn't even know it. Stay. Please stay. Casey let his shoulders slump in defeat. He looked up at Kit through his eyelashes. She was wearing one of her atypical wild outfits, as per the usual. A camouflage tank, tight jeans and a beige scarf twisted around her hair. She reached over and put her hand under his chin, tilting his face up to look at her. He felt his bravado slip, and his chin trembled. Her eyes softened somewhat, and she stepped forward, wrapping her arms lightly around his shoulders. He felt her warm breath on his neck and the tears started to spill down his cheeks. A small drop of warm salty tear fell on his shoulder, and he realized it wasn't his tear. She pulled back and smiled at him shakily. Leaning back over, she planted a soft kiss on his mouth._

"Farewell, Casey."

And then she turned away and was gone.

--- --- ---

Casey slammed his door shut and leaned against it, his breath coming in short gasps.

"Casey?" called his dad. "everything alright up there?"

Casey barely choked out, "Yeah."

"Good."

Casey locked the door and then ran forward and fell face first onto his bed, letting his shoulders shake with sobs. His tears soaked through the comforter as his fingers clenched and unclenched the fabric of his bed. He was sobbing wildly, like a child. After everything, she was gone. Left him like she hadn't even cared. But he had! Hadn't she seen that? That he finally realized how much everything had meant?

"Dammit!" he sobbed into his pillow brokenly. "I love you, Kit! I love you! I love you!"

He spiraled into oblivion, sobbing those three words over and over again into his pillow until sleep took him away, and let forgetfulness take the pain. A sheet of paper fluttered down off of a sketchbook laying on his desk and drifted lazily to the floor, as if it didn't realize its own importance. Written on it was the following.

_Dear Casey,_

_I'm sorry I had to do what I did. I'm sure by now I've completely shattered your heart. But I can't keep doing this. Everyone needs to go out and find what they need. And I need to get out there and live. I can't be stuck here forever. I know you're hating me, and cursing the day you ever met me, or you are if I did what I intend to do when I write this now. I don't know. I might give in and not break your heart. But whatever I do, you should know that I am forever on your side. I will live now! I cry, I laugh, I break hearts, I bleed and I live._

_I love you,_

_Kit_

--- --- ---

Kit knew from her drivers handbook that driving while emotionally distraught was a bad idea. But she knew if she stopped she would go back. She couldn't go back. She'd backed down. Her original plan had been to tell Casey that all she'd ever done was all a lie. Tears streaked down her cheeks and flew back into the wind. The breeze whipped her hair back around her face and made her cheeks sting. What would she have done? Should she have done something different? She could have had him. Ripped away all his defenses. A wondering thought flitted through her mind. Would it have been safer to just have taken her chance? Right after Delilah dumped him. She could have. He would have. And she suspected it would be safest to give everything to him, because he trusted her completely, and he her.

She shook her head and tried on a wide, friendly smile. The kind she won him over with. The kind she could always pull off. But it crumpled and fell from her face as she broke into tears.

There was no way she could rationalize breaking his heart. There were no words to explain her actions to herself, except that she knew she would never deserve him and would have broken his heart eventually. But even that paled when she thought of the tears clinging to his eyelashes and gleaming in his blue eyes.

As Kit roared off down the highway, passing a blue Chevy on her right, she could only bring two words to her mind.

Goodbye, Casey.

--- --- ---


	28. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

**http:// www.**** angelfire.com/ hero/ bauer/ kitandcasey.JPG**

**http:// www. angelfire.com/ hero/ bauer/ kitcasey2.JPG**

**--- --- ---**

_morning__ smiles_

_like__ the face_

_of__ a newborn child_

_innocent__ unknowing._

_winter's__ end_

_promises___

_of__ a long lost friend._

_speaks__ to me of comfort_

_but__ I fear_

_I have nothing to give._

_I have so much_

_to__ lose here in this lonely place._

_tangled__ up in your embrace_

_there's__ there's nothing I'd like better than_

_to__ fall._

_but__ I fear_

_I have nothing to give._

_wind__ in time_

_rapes__ the flower_

_trembling__ on the vine_

_and__ nothing yields to shelter_

_from__ above._

_they__ say temptation will destroy our love._

_the__ never ending hunger_

_but__ I fear_

_I have nothing to give_

_I have so much_

_to__ lose here in this lonely place_

_tangled__ up in our embrace_

_there's__ nothing I'd like better than_

_to__ fall_

_but__ I fear_

_I have nothing to give._

_I have so much to lose._

_I have nothing to give._

_we__ have so much to lose..._

--- --- ---

Kit and Casey met again in college and because roommates. They dated for several months before Kit got restless. After college, neither saw the other for ten years. Stokely wrote a best-selling novel about the alien attack on the school and married Stan, an English professor at a university. Delilah moved to New York and became a columnist at a popular women's magazine. Zeke became a scientist and is now working at NASA. Gabe was last seen working at the Amoco station in Herrington.

Casey became a freelance photographer for large newspapers around the country. While in Memphis, he ran into Kit. She was working as a trolley operator to Mud Island. Casey applied for a regular job at the paper there in Memphis. They talk often, and Casey is working to get Kit a job in the mailroom. Neither are in a relationship with anyone else. They are taking one step at a time.

**Fin.**

Thank you.


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